Schools should come up with own smartphone policy, says Leo
SCHOOLS should come up with their own smartphone policies through consulting with parents and with pupils, Leo Varadkar has said.
The French government is currently guiding legislation through its parliament to ban smartphones in schools up to the age of 15, while Fianna Fáil has called for a similar ban here up to Junior Cert level.
Asked about such a move while in Spain this week, the Taoiseach initially indicated that he wouldn’t be in favour of any legislation that would require the gardaí being called into schools.
When it was pointed out that only teachers would be required to implement such a ban, Mr Varadkar said he favoured Education Minister Richard Bruton’s approach under which schools were recently instructed to consult with teachers, parents and pupils about what sort of smartphone policy they should draw up.
He said: ‘The principle that we have in Ireland is that schools are autonomous, schools have their patron bodies and their own boards, whereas Government can issue guidelines, we don’t try and centrally manage schools.
‘Schools make their own rules – they decide on their own uniforms and they make their own timetables. And I think that kind of local autonomy in our education system works very well.
‘But I do think it is something that individual school boards should
think about, they should ask the pupils and parents what they think and they should come to a decision on that.’
He added that the Cabinet recently discussed the issue of internet safety which Communications Minister Denis Naughten is taking the lead on.
‘Minister Naughten, with the help of other ministers, in fact, with a group led by my department, is putting together a package of measures that we can implement around safety online, not just for children but for everyone, but in particular for children.
‘And we expect to be able to publish that before the summer recess and that, I believe, will represent some real action from the Government on this issue.’
‘I can’t go into details now, because that is really for Minister Naughten to publish them,’ Mr Varadkar added.