Senator lays out Bill to ban smartphones during school hours
A BILL to ban smartphone use by students during school hours will be raised in the Seanad this week.
The Education (Digital Devices in Schools) Bill 2018 is set to be introduced to the upper house on Wednesday by Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell.
The proposed legislation is geared towards introducing a ‘regulatory framework for the use of digital devices in school’, which includes smartphones, mobile phones and tablets.
In an explanatory memo, Mr Craughwell states the Bill is needed because of ‘the growing number of students owning and operating smartphones in a classroom setting’ – and points out that some schools are promoting the use of tablets while others are trying to restrict them.
The Independent senator’s memo adds that there is ‘no existing State regulation of mobile phone usage by pupils in primary and post-primary education’, despite the fact there is a ‘growing habit of phone usage’.
‘Consequently, phone regulation is left to the decision-making of the [school] board of management,’ he outlines. ‘The lack of a consistent approach to phone usage is demonstrated by some second level schools in Ireland encouraging the use of mobile phones as a learning device, while others have policies containing outright bans on phones.
‘The reality is that both approaches fall short on effectiveness and students tend to be quite capable of flouting these standards.’
Mr Craughwell is proposing a ‘code of behaviour on digital devices’, but essentially it will be a two-pronged approach as the rules will vary slightly between primary and secondary schools.
For primaries, the proposed Bill outlines a requirement for ‘digital devices in the possession of students to be labelled and handed in at the commencement of each school day and returned at the conclusion of each school day’. Students found in possession of devices during school hours will have ‘breached the standards’.
In secondaries, the proposed Bill says students must keep devices switched off while in school.
The senator’s memo said it is acknowledged prohibiting phones among post-primary pupils who ‘move from class to class is not possible by requiring students to surrender phones’.
‘Rather, it places the onus on the student to conceal their phones and switch them off while on the school premises,’ it added.
Schools would be able to enforce this by using a ‘three strikes approach’, according to the Bill.
The first offence would see the phones confiscated for the day, a second strike would see the device confiscated for the remainder of that week and a parent/guardian would have to collect it from the school. A third offence would see the device confiscated for the remainder of term.
The code of behaviour would be implemented by the board of management and teachers with the aim of ‘reducing the harmful impact on academic performance, social and emotional wellbeing of children’.
The Bill also proposes that parents must confirm in writing when register their children at a school that the code of behaviour is ‘acceptable to them and that they shall make all reasonable efforts to ensure compliance with such code by the child’.
However, there are some exceptions.
The Bill is supported by senators Victor Boyhan and Billy Lawless and comes after French politicians voted to ban smartphones in schools up to the age of 16.