UN calls on schools to ban smartphones in classrooms

Schools around the world are calling on schools around the world to ban the use of smartphones in classrooms to keep kids from being distracted, according to a report by UNESCO. Even proximity to smartphones can lead to students being distracted in class, which in turn leads to poorer grades, the UN agency said.

A new Unesco report warns against the overuse of technologies such as smartphones and computers in education, saying the benefits of using them can disappear if overused or used without teacher guidance.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a report: "The digital revolution has immeasurable potential, but just as warnings have been raised about how society should regulate it, so too must we The same attention should be paid to the way it is applied in education.”

"Its use must be to enhance the learning experience and the well-being of students and teachers, not to their detriment."

The UNESCO 2023 report warns that while technology in the classroom is beneficial for students' learning, it can also have harmful effects if used incorrectly or excessively - as is the case with smartphones.

"Large-scale international assessment data, such as that provided by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), suggest a negative relationship between overuse of ICT and student performance," the report said.

While the mere proximity of a mobile device distracts students and negatively impacts learning in 14 countries, less than a quarter of the world bans smartphones in schools, the agency wrote.

Countries that have banned the practice include France (introduced in 2018), Italy (where teachers collect students' smartphones after school), Finland and the Netherlands (to introduce a ban in 2024).

Based on their findings, UNESCO is recommending a global ban on the use of smartphones in classrooms.

"We need to understand the mistakes we have made in the use of technology in education in the past so we don't repeat them in the future," said report director Manos Antoninis.

“We need to teach children how to live with and without technology; get what they need from the abundance of information and ignore unnecessary information; let technology support but never replace human interaction in teaching .”

focus on human interaction

Unesco, which is wary of the beneficial effects of technology in the classroom, said the evidence in favor of technology came mainly from the world's wealthiest countries such as the UK, or from "people trying to sell technology".

Instead of continuing to rely on technology to educate children, education should continue to center on human interaction, the agency said.

Over the past 20 years, screens have replaced paper materials in many classrooms, and students have ditched heavy encyclopedias for Wikipedia — which, according to UNESCO, will be 244 million page views per day. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a revolution in classroom technology, forcing millions of students around the world to switch to online learning.

According to UNESCO, by 2022, about 50% of the world's lower secondary schools will be connected to the Internet for teaching purposes.

While some changes need to be embraced, UNESCO says we should be discussing how much space we want technology to take up in our classrooms. "Excessive focus on educational technology often comes at a high price," the agency wrote in the report.

Resources for technology should be used to provide classrooms, teachers and textbooks to all children in low- and lower-middle-income countries who do not have access to these resources, so that they too can achieve universal secondary education and a minimum level of learning ability.

On top of that, the agency warns that the educational benefits of technology are unevenly distributed, and disadvantaged children are often denied access to technology.

(compiled by: Wang Jimin)

(Editor in charge: Jiang Qiming)

(Source of the article: New Sancai first release)