The use of mobile phones is to be banned throughout the day in schools in England, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has announced.
She told GB News: “What we face is a problem of inconsistency. Some schools have already done this and some headteachers have reported that it's had a fantastic impact actually on behaviour and concentration and performance at school. But we also know that some have not and we think it's probably about half and half have got an outright ban.
“What we want to do is have consistency in our schools, first of all to make sure that we empower headteachers to do this and secondly to make sure that it's throughout the day, without the phones coming out for breaks or for lunch, which some of them do today. It's to make sure that there's no phones in the school during the school day.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, she continued: “Many of the ones who have a ban today will say you can't take your phone out your bag, and if you take your phone out of your bag, then you'll get the phone confiscated and you'll get detention.
“Sometimes that is effective. What we're trying to do is change the norm in our schools, that phones are not acceptable in our schools. Some other countries have already done this, quite a few countries have already done this.”
She added: “There's been some calls recently for social media to be banned for younger people, for smartphones to be banned for younger people. This is a step that I can take, which is to set the social norm that phones are banned in schools.
“People will have a conversation, between parents and children as well, to say, ‘look, if your school says it's no good for you in the day, then obviously it's right to limit it’, though. That's something that I hope will just set new norms really.
“Obviously, technology brings with it many, many advantages and one of the advantages now as you can see where everybody is. That's certainly an advantage for parents and their child.
“So there are some benefits to technology and there’re often benefits also to smartphones, but the reality is we need to get that balance right and there is a feeling amongst many parents and also teachers as well, that that balance has gone too far.”
WATCH ABOVE.
