In Finland, there has been a lively discussion in recent weeks about the use of cell phones in schools. Purussuomaliket, which is running for government, has outlined that phones should stay in backpacks throughout the school day.
We asked in different countries what kind of rules and practices prevail in them regarding the use of cell phones by school children.
You can read about the situation in Finland in this article: If the cell phone ban proposed by basic Finns were to be implemented in schools, this is how it would change everyday life
Italy: Mobile phone ban since last December
The Italian government completely banned the use of mobile phones in schools last December. The government instructed schools to collect cell phones from students for the entire school day.
Exceptions to the ban are teaching situations where cell phones are used.
– We attend classes because we learn there. This is the interest of the students that we have to monitor, Italian Minister of Education Giuseppe Valditara comment on the decision.
Many Italian schools had applied some kind of cell phone ban even before the government’s policy.
Now the new law is applied in schools in different ways: some strictly ban cell phones for the whole day, others treat their use more laxly.
Attending high school in Rome Martin Menor Cogorro, 13, got his first smartphone about a year ago. Before that, he used a smartwatch that allowed him to call his parents.
Menor Cogorro says that at his school, cell phones are collected before classes start and put behind locks.
– I think it’s a good rule. If the phone is with you and even on silent, you might look at it during the lesson and not concentrate. When it is gone, for example, notes must be made in a notebook.
Sweden: behind bars
Stockholm’s Swedish-Finnish school tightened the possibility of students using mobile phones during the school day.
In the past, teachers collected the mobile phones of 1st-7th graders in a locked cabinet. Got the phone back when the school day ended.
Last fall, the same rule was also extended to middle schoolers, i.e. 7th to 9th graders.
Now even the oldest students’ Cell Phones are therefore in a locked cabinet in the hallway throughout the school day.
Vice Principal Pauliina Salomaa according to the blackmail, the aim was to ensure that a vibrating mobile phone in the backpack does not take away attention and disturb concentration during the lesson.
The new rules were introduced when the sections of the Swedish School Act on the use of cell phones were tightened in August of last year. Cellphones are prohibited during classes. The school staff has the right to remove the phone if necessary. Schools were also given the opportunity to make their own additional strictures.
A seventh grader by Tilde Bachman according to the lower grades, the cell phone ban was natural, because there were more breaks than upper grades and they have to go outside. Middle school students have only one, long mealtime that can be spent inside. Bachman says that the student council has thought about whether cell phones could be released even for ninth graders to use during recess.
Vice-rector Salomaa says, however, that he noticed a change for the better already in the first winter.
– Previously, middle school students sat in a row, and everyone was staring at their own phone. Now the students play cards and chat, and that’s great.
Bachman’s peer Antonia Ahola says that some tried to cheat at the beginning, giving the teacher a mobile phone that had already been disabled and keeping the mobile phone in their pocket. The teachers did not give up.
The girls do not believe in the model presented in Finland, according to which you should keep your mobile phone in your backpack during the school day.
– It’s strange that the backpack would go with it during recess, for example to the bathroom. And everyone knows why, says Tilde Bachman.
France: in a backpack with silent
In France, the use of handsets at school was banned by decree in 2018.
– We put the cell phones on silent and in the bag in the morning, and they are not allowed to be taken out during classes,” says a 16-year-old living in France Fanni Vainio.
13 year old sister Fiona likes the cell phone ban.
– It would be difficult to concentrate if cell phones were allowed.
According to the girls, the ban is respected quite well. Teachers differ in how they deal with rule breakers. The strictest ones confiscate the phone for the day and give a follow-up session.
In high school, the ban relaxes a bit, because there you can take out your phone during breaks.
Germany: Bavaria relaxed its strict ban
The vast majority of German schools have at least some kind of restrictions on the use of mobile phones. According to a survey conducted in 2019, the use of cell phones was practically completely prohibited in 16 percent. Most schools banned the use in lessons. Four percent did not limit it at all.
In Germany, children’s mobile phones are treated more strictly than in many other countries. Only one in five German children gets a smartphone under the age of 10. 86 percent of 10-12-year-olds have one, said the statistics website Statista in 2021.
Among the states, only the old Bavaria has enacted binding restrictions on the use of cell phones by schoolchildren. Bavaria almost completely banned the use of cell phones in schools already in 2006.
Now Bavaria has also decided that a complete ban is not good. Since last fall, schools have also been allowed to regulate the use of mobile phones themselves. According to the Bavarian Public Broadcasting Company, the change in the law was driven by many schoolchildren, parents and teachers who did not consider a complete ban to be modern.