My teen daughter’s iPad is supposed to help her learn... but instead she uses it for Game Of Thrones

TWO cheers are due to Richard Bruton, the Education Minister, after his announcement yesterday that parents, teachers and students are to be consulted on use of so-called smartphones in schools. But the third cheer is being withheld for now.

The first cheer is due to his confirmation that there is a real issue to be addressed. Not all ministers seem convinced, or if they are they are afraid to say so for fear of being condemned as somehow Luddite, not with the times and fearful of technology.

The second cheer is for not just giving parents and schools the authority to consider and act but requiring them to do so immediately. A weaker minister would have done nothing.

Worthwhile

But the third cheer is withheld because he could have done more. He could have prevailed upon the Government of which he is a member to take stronger action, as this newspaper has consistently recommended in recent months, as the public realisation of the dangers of smartphones and tablet devices increases.

It is understandable that Minister Bruton may be taking this more cautious approach instead of looking to introduce and enforce a minimum age for ownership, as has been campaigned for by this newspaper.

However, he has decided to do something that at least is worthwhile. He has directed schools to consider, among other things, the following:

The appropriate use, if any, of tablet devices and smartphones in school.

If smartphones and tablet devices are to be allowed and in what circumstances they should be used.

If these devices’ use is allowed, he wants to know what rules would apply to the recording of videos and taking of photographs – issues that can lead to considerable upset and argument between teenagers, in the same families and beyond.

The decisions that are needed as to what restrictions are to be directed, if there are to be any, their nature and scope and the age at which these might be lifted or relaxed.

Whether or not smartphones should be allowed outside of class time, such as during breaks, or on school grounds after school has started or finished for the day.

Measures to ensure what’s called ‘a shared approach’ on the appropriate use of digital technologies in the home and during free time for students.

It is being recommended that following this consultation, all schools should update their policies. This would include things like an acceptable usage policy and other policies on students bringing their own devices and technology to school. Some schools may already have these in place but they can always be improved. Others, if they haven’t, need to get their skates on.

Encouragingly, the release from the Department of Education also provided information on the Webwise support service that is offered to help teenagers access and use the internet in a safe and ethical way. It provides information and advice about sexting, online blackmail, popular apps and social networks, making friends online and sharing personal information. It may not be perfect but it is a reasonable effort and it shows an awareness within the department – and by its minister – that should not be taken for granted.

Risks

‘New technologies are fundamentally transforming the world we live in. These changes offer fantastic opportunities for our young people but also pose potential risks, which we as a Government must respond to,’ said Mr Bruton.

This comment showed a realisation that we cannot get rid of the new technologies, even if we are uncertain, at the very least, of their effects on mental health, as well as an awareness of the wonderfully positive things they can deliver to users. But we can’t just throw our hands up and give up on efforts to use them carefully, especially for children.

The State is entitled to step in and make demands as to how such technology is used in its schools, on the basis that it funds the education system. He who pays the piper is entitled to call the tune as to what goes on in our schools.

And let me give you another analogy. We ban smoking in all of our schools because it is a workplace for the teachers and students, not just because we don’t like the idea of children smoking. But it goes further than that. We don’t allow it in the schoolyards, even if open air, and teachers for generations have policed the attempts of some to smoke behind the bicycle shed, even long before the adverse effects of smoking were widely understood. We have never tolerated the idea that just because many smoked, as they did, it was right for our children to do so, especially at school.

If schools police smoking, there is no reason why they can’t do the same with electronic devices.

Opportunities

I can anticipate the arguments that tablets, for example, are a great aid to learning in our schools. But it is instructive that the enthusiasm for their use in many schools seems to have ebbed.

They are a massive expense – and get broken – and many teachers and parents have come to the conclusion that the physical textbooks get better use than the expensive electronic download versions that are needed.

While the tablets open up endless opportunities to discover things of use, my own experience with teenage daughters is that they enjoy them as a mini-television screen in their bedrooms when they are supposed to be studying the textbooks loaded on them.

I have a daughter who, it turns out, might be a candidate for an A grade in Game Of Thrones studies were it one of the Junior Certificate subjects she is sitting this June. All of this is because of the iPad she brings home from school each day… and I’m working on the assumption that this is the worst that she does with that expensive piece of equipment.

I fully support the idea that we need to teach more about computer coding and usage in our schools, because this is fundamental as to how people live and work now, as well as in the future.

However, there is a strong argument that if the students are to have tablets, they should be left in storage in their school, as if they were desktop computers like many of us leave daily in our places of work. The problem with that is that they then don’t have their textbooks, unless parents have paid on the double to have hard-copy versions too. The solution to that, as is the case at the secondary school one of my sons attends, is not to have tablets at all but to continue to depend on books.

The proposal to have tablets left in schools is not a Luddite solution, as some tech-savvy proponents claim: after all, students who aspire to a career in science don’t bring home the chemicals that they use in school lab experiments.