[Jan Fisher]

The new New South Wales state government will ban mobile phones in public schools.

I applaud the good intentions, but it is destined to fail.

Everything you can do on a phone, you can pretty much do on a laptop, and they all have laptops these days.

And if there is one thing I have learnt from teenagers, as far as technology goes, they are always one step ahead of us. Banning phones will be a challenge for them.

I pity the poor teachers who will have to enforce this rule. I suspect it will be like pushing water uphill.

Do you think phones should be banned in schools?

[KSS]

The difference, Jan, is that schools can, and probably should, be monitoring what students are doing on their laptops which they cannot when students use mobile phones because the phones are not working through the school system. This should have been implemented several years ago. It is bit horse has already bolted and the parents must take responsibility for that. Few students would be paying for their own phones yet parents seem to think the phones are essential when the kids are already in a safe place (or meant to be) where they can easily be contacted should an emergency arise. Parents can call the school office just like in the olden days before mobile phones! I see absolutely no reason for students of any age to have their phones in class.

[Rocket]

I don’t believe it has taken this long for the various Education Departments to acknowledge student access to their mobiles during school hours would be a major problem. Even those of us who don’t have kids or grandkids of school age are totally aware of how little tolerance today’s kids have to being told ‘no’, how everything must happen ‘now’, how poor their concentration span is, how social media rules their lives, and how poor their impulse control is.

Yes, access to mobiles should be banned during school hours and there is plenty of technology in the cyber world to prevent school computers from accessing unsuitable sites. This should not be a state by state decision to make, this should be compulsory in all state and private schools in the country

[Author]

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