The country’s new government has decided to take drastic measures against the alarmingly increased illiteracy of schoolchildren.
Cell phones are banned in schools across New Zealand, the country’s new prime minister, representing the conservative National Party Christopher Luxon announced on Friday. His fledgling government plans to turn the country’s sharply declining literacy rate into a new upswing.
In the past, New Zealand’s schools have been proud of the results, according to which the country’s schoolchildren have been among the most literate in the world. Now, however, students’ reading and writing skills have collapsed to such a low level that some researchers suspect that classrooms are in crisis.
Prime Minister Luxon announced that he would ban phones in schools during his first hundred days in office. He has learned from the United States, Great Britain and France, where something similar has been tried with varying results. According to Luxon, banning cell phones stops disruptive behavior and helps students to concentrate.
– We are going to ban phones in schools all over New Zealand. We want our children to learn and our teachers to teach, he said.
Last year, researchers at the New Zealand charity Education Hub warned of a “literacy crisis”. They found that more than a third of the country’s 15-year-olds can barely read or write.
– It is clear that something needs to be done to raise the painfully low level of literacy in New Zealand, they stressed.
Luxon’s conservative government, which took its oath of office on Monday, has found itself in the middle of controversies in its first week of government. Doctors have warned that the country is facing a public health “tragedy” after the new government unexpectedly announced it was abandoning the world’s toughest measures to stop smoking. The purpose was to ban the sale of cigarettes in New Zealand to everyone born after 2008.
Luxon has also agreed to restart exploration for oil and gas on the seabed, overturning former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s ambitious climate policy.
Source: AFP