GUEST COLUMN Minister Norma Foley: Why I am banning phones in secondary schools

Following on from the Guest Column by teacher Gearóid Ó Riain in the August 27 edition of The Mayo News, titled, ‘Minister Foley’s proposal to ban phone is the distraction’, I want to explain why I intend to ban mobile phone use in our post-primary schools around the country.
Firstly, I want to acknowledge that there is a huge body of work already being done in our schools. Practically all of them have policies around acceptable use of mobile phones in our schools.
But I think all of the evidence is pointing towards the need, particularly for our post-primary schools, to turn them into ‘mobile phone free zones’.
Last year, a report by UNESCO, the UN’s education agency, recommended that smartphones should be banned from schools to improve learning and tackle classroom disruption and cyberbullying. UNESCO, the UN’s education agency, cited evidence that removing smartphones from schools in Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom was found to improve learning outcomes.
It noted that just having a mobile phone nearby with notifications coming through is enough to result in students losing their attention from the task at hand.
One study found that it can take students up to 20 minutes to refocus on what they were learning once distracted.
Some schools allow students access to their mobile phones at break times and lunchtime. But lots and lots of times at break time, our students are just glued to their phones. I think it diminishes the opportunity in terms of fostering relationships and building community in schools.
Going forward, there should be no access to mobile phones until the school day is over. Our schools should be places of learning. They should be places of conversation and community building.
Ireland is not alone in pursing this. The UNESCO report last year found that almost one in four countries have introduced bans on smartphones use in schools, from Côte d’Ivoire to Colombia, from Italy to the Netherlands.
We have a significant programme being rolled out in our primary schools where we’re encouraging parents to ‘Keep Childhood Smartphone Free’. As a result, there has been a strong take up of the voluntary agreements among parents not to buy smartphones for their children while they are in primary school.
I really want to acknowledge the work that parents are doing in that regard with support of schools. Equally so, in our schools, we have Webwise, who are working with our students about how to be safe online
But, I strongly believe we need a mobile phone ban in post-primary schools to complement these initiatives because we’re seeing more and more issues around mobile phones in the hands of young people. The whole issue of cyberbullying is such an important one that we need to be proactive in this space.
Some parents want their children to have a mobile phone in secondary school so they can reach them if necessary. But if students need to be contacted, parents can still get in touch with them by ringing the school. Students can have access to their mobile during their journey to school.
Some students may have medical conditions that can involve the use of a mobile phone. For example, pupils with diabetes might use continuous glucose monitoring with a sensor linked to their mobile phone to monitor blood sugar levels. Where such mobile phone use is required for pupils to manage their medical condition effectively, schools will have the discretion to allow this. Students will still be able to bring their mobile phones with them during their journey to and from school, if they wish.
I know that many schools are already using electronic pouches so that students can securely store away their mobile phones during the school day. Different schools do different things. Some schools have a policy of keeping the phone turned off in a student’s bag during the day. Others get students to put the phone in their locker. Schools will have autonomy to implement the ban in their own way. The department will support them in doing that.
But we need a universal culture across all of our schools. A culture that ensures that schools are places of learning, places of engagement, and places of one-to-one interactions and group interactions. The mobile phone disrupts that. We’re looking to establish this culture of a mobile-free zone within our schools.