A bill which would ban the use of mobile phones in schools by law will be voted on in parliament within the next fortnight, House education committee chairman and Diko MP Pavlos Mylonas said on Wednesday.
Mylonas was speaking after a committee meeting which discussed the matter, and said he thinks the change will be “useful”.
“What is needed is further discussion with teachers and children” while the law is being applied, he said, adding that those impacted will need to be “informed about the exact intentions” of it, and that children will need to “know the reason why this decision is being taken”.
“In other words, informing them within the context of prevention and dealing with an issue which has been scientifically proven to have only negative effects for all people on their mental health, their concentration, and other factors which are affected by the frequent use of, as we call them, smartphones,” he said.
Education Minister Athena Michaelidou was also present at the committee meeting and spoke at length after it.
“Mobile phones are banned in primary schools. In middle and high schools, however, they are allowed during break times, and they create stacks of problems,” she said, adding that break times “create opportunities for children to abuse mobile phones, and that leads to delinquent behaviours”.
“Mainly, what we are interested in is their mental health, apart from their physical health, and that has to do with dizziness, headaches which have happened, that have been reported, isolation, alienation and the correlation of smartphone use with low learning outcomes, all of this is important. This is why we had to intervene,” she said.
She clarified that mobile phones will not be completely banned from being on school sites at all, but that they will have to be switched off and kept in school bags throughout the school day.
This, she said, is a “balanced” approach, and one which she said will go hand in hand with the installation of lockers at schools, in which pupils will be able to place mobile phones and other items.
She also insisted that the ban on mobile phones “is not connected at all with the use of new technologies”, and that her ministry is embracing modern technology in other ways.
“We have already sent many devices to schools, thousands of devices, such as tablets, so children can use the new technologies in class, teaching and learning. The mobile phone is not a device which will allow them access to new technologies. It allows them access to a thousand other things, which are far from the educational use of their time at school,” she said.
Asked what penalties will be implemented for children caught using mobile phones at school, she said they will range from a “simple reprimand” to being expelled.
“We are starting with very simple steps, informing children from this year if the bill is passed, and if needs require, in the coming years. Our aim is not to be the police, but to have an educational approach to the issue,” she said.
However, if children do violate the new law, punishments will depend on the severity of the mobile phone usage.
“Of course, in the case that it is very serious, if the pupil does not comply and our goal is not achieved, expulsion is the final measure which will be needed,” she said.
