Schools in Nghe An say 'no' to cell phone use

The school has no telephone.

Since September 30, Quy Hop High School has officially announced that students are not allowed to bring cell phones to school. In the whole province, apart from some special schools, this seems to be the first school to make this official announcement.

After 2 days of implementation, although there are still some mixed opinions on forums, this regulation has received support from the majority of parents.

With no more phones at school, the recess times of Quy Hop High School students have changed positively. Instead of students just staring at their phones, they have now started to return to familiar school games such as shuttlecock kicking, jump rope, badminton...

Why ban cell phones in schools? According to teacher Nguyen Minh Dat – Principal of the school, this decision was made when in reality, more than 80% of the school’s students have smartphones and they often bring them to school.

Although there are many measures to prevent students from usingphoneduring class hours, but students still secretly use it often. Even during recess, students often have the habit of only paying attention to their phones, instead of participating in group activities: It cannot be denied that phones have many advantages and there are many information channels for students to learn. But for students, their task at school is to focus on their lessons and once they have phones, they will be distracted because there are often many messages and notifications sent - teacher Nguyen Minh Dat added.

Before making the decision to ban students from bringing cell phones to school, the Board of Directors of Quy Hop High School consulted with a large number of teachers and the Parents' Association. This showed that the approval rate was over 80%. The school principal also said that there were some opposing opinions such as if students did not bring cell phones to school, their families would not be able to contact them. Some students were worried that because they were staying at a boarding house, their cell phones would be easily stolen... However, with the desire to build a school environment without cell phones, the school was still determined to do it.

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Every day, the school's Red Flag Team will be at the school gate to check and remind students. If any violation occurs, the competition score will be reduced. In addition, the school also allows each class to have a number of students (who are the class officers) to bring their phones to school and make this phone number public to all parents. In case of emergency, parents can contact this phone number or can contact teachers.

Teacher Nguyen Minh Dat - Principal of Quy Hop High School

No cell phone use during class

Before Quy Hop High School, two provincial ethnic minority high schools and Ethnic Minority Boarding High School No. 2 were the pioneer schools that did not allow students to use cell phones.

At the Ethnic Minority Boarding High School No. 2, teacher Lo Thanh Binh said: In the past, when students were still allowed to bring phones into school, we had to deal with a number of conflicts between students inside and outside the school. Therefore, the school sought parents' opinions on banning students from using phones and all parents agreed. After many years of implementation, the ban on phone use has been included in the school's regulations and parents must commit to cooperating with the school in managing it.

Before the ban on cell phones was put into practice, Ethnic Minority Boarding High School No. 2 also had many "hard" measures to deter students: When it was first implemented, if a student was found using a cell phone, we required parents to come to school to sign a record and receive the student's cell phone back.

If students violate the rules many times, they may be suspended from school for a few days and must have the consent of the local authorities before they can return to school. With these strict measures, students have taken them very seriously and this brings many benefits to them when studying at school. If they need to contact their family, they can use the teacher's phone or the school's common phone in the dormitory - Mr. Binh added.

Although not yet completely banned, currently in many classrooms in Nghe An, schools and parents have proactively purchased small, locked boxes and required students to put their phones in the box during class.

At Le Loi High School (Tan Ky), in addition to buying a phone box for each class, the school also sets out many regulations if students violate. Speaking more about this, teacher Nguyen Van Thinh - Principal of the school said: In case of student violations, if the violation is serious, we will make a record to confiscate the phone and return it to the parents at the end of the year. Otherwise, if there are students who violate the class, their competition points will be deducted or they will be required to do labor to train their awareness.

At Do Luong 1 High School, the ban on cell phone use during class is implemented by creating awareness among students so that they do not get into the habit of using cell phones during class. At the same time, the school continues to use cell phone storage boxes, increases inspections and strictly handles violations by students.

Teacher Le Duc Hung - Principal of Do Luong 1 High School added: In our school regulations, the ban is not completely implemented because there are some lessons where students can use phones to increase the effectiveness of the lesson. However, if teachers want to have lessons with the use of phones, they must have a specific plan. In addition, we also recommend that teachers should not abuse the use of phones in lessons but can use other applications through the TV system with internet installed in the classrooms.

Regarding the use of mobile phones, on September 15, 2020, the Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular No. 32/2020/TT-BGDDT, which stipulates: "Students are not allowed to use mobile phones or other devices while studying in class that are not for learning purposes and are not permitted by teachers."

It is expected that this October, the Nghe An Education Trade Union will launch the campaign "Nghe An students say no to phones during class" and hope that this will raise students' awareness in using phones, contributing to improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning in schools.
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