TORONTO—The Ontario government will be introducing a ban on cellphones in the classroom to create a better learning environment for students, said Education Minister Lisa Thompson.
“Ontario’s students need to be able to focus on their learning, and not their cell phones,” she said in a written statement Tuesday, March 12.
“By banning cellphone use that distracts from learning, we are helping students to focus on acquiring the foundational skills they need like reading, writing, and math,” Thompson said.
In a statement to The Canadian Press, the Ontario Principals’ Council said school boards already have policies around cellphone use and the council would not support a further ban.
Current Ontario Policies
Most, if not all, schools and school boards already have cellphone and technology related policies in place. Many of those policies allow teachers to set the terms of when and how cellphones can be used in class.For example, in Canada’s capital, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has an Appropriate Use of Technology policy. It states that personal electronic devices, like cellphones, should support classroom activities and that teachers would guide and monitor student access to their use.
In 2017, a Toronto middle school implemented a ban on the use of cellphones in classrooms. The school introduced the rule to help students focus in class rather than be tempted to check their devices.
“It certainly aligns with our current practice and board procedure,” TVDSB education director Laura Elliott told the London Free Press. “We allow cellphones in a classroom when teachers want to use them for instructional purposes and we do have a formal procedure on that, so we do recognize the value—a phone is actually a computer—and used quite often bt our classroom teachers.”
Elsewhere in the World
Just across the country, a Victoria middle school became the first school in its district to ban cellphones in school when it implemented the policy for the 2018-19 school year. British Columbia does not have a provincial policy on cellphone use in classrooms, so schools set their own rules. According to Central Middle School Principal Christopher Macintosh, the decision to ban cellphones was because it was impeding student learning, reports Global News.Across the Pond, France has banned phones in classrooms since 2010. However, since students still used cellphones in class, as of 2018, France implemented a nationwide ban on student cellphone use in primary, elementary, and middle school, or for students aged 6 to about 15.