The Department for Education has launched a new campaign to build awareness in the community, confronting the reason why it is important to ban mobile phones in public high schools.
The Department said a policy requiring students’ mobile phones to be ‘off and away’ at school is to occur in all public high schools from Term 3.
As suggested by the South Australian Secondary Principal’s Association (SASPA), the awareness campaign will see advertising run across a range of mediums throughout the year and highlight the value of phones being switched off while school is underway.
SASPA said the campaign would ensure that parents, caregivers and family members understood the importance of the policy in schools so they can have conversations with their children about the detrimental impact that mobile phones have on their learning and socialisation and why this action is being taken.
“Research shows that technology and social media can have detrimental impacts on developing minds and identifies strong correlations between extensive use of technology and increased depression and anxiety,” SASPA said.
It said schools that had already implemented the ban were already seeing reduction in the inappropriate use of mobile phones by students and an improvement in their overall learning environment while reducing screentime and encouraging physical activity during breaks.
The Minister for Education, Training and Skills, Blair Boyer said mental health and well-being were critical to students’ successes and research suggested that younger people are more vulnerable to the negative impacts of social media.
“We’ve already seen international social media trends inciting fight clubs or other bullying trends creating a negative culture among our young people,” Mr Boyer said.
“This new policy has already seen a major shift in our schools and brings students’ focus back to their learning by eliminating a significant distraction in our classrooms; however, for this ban to work, it needs the support of the whole community,” he said.
“It’s more than a ban on mobile phones in schools – it’s about teaching our young people to use technology in a safe, ethical and responsible way,” Mr Boyer said.
More information about the mobile phone campaign is available at this PS News link.
