Why phone ban isn’t answer to social media crisis: Top educators reject plan for blanket school ban

Days after Golden Grove students were targeted in vile TikTok videos, leading educators say a planned ban on mobile phones won’t stop kids behaving badly. Do you agree? Take our poll.

The state’s secondary school sector is pushing back against a planned mobile phone ban in schools, despite a spate of school-based social media crises.

SA Secondary Principals’​ Association president Jayne Heath said a blanket ban wasn’t the

answer to stamping out cyber-bullying or inappropriate online behaviour.

The education union agrees, arguing too that a blanket ban would simply mean “every single teacher becomes like a mask cop … only with mobile phones”.

Both say the focus needs to be on working with kids to educate them on the potential impacts of social media.

Revelations to emerge this week include TikTok lists which rate female students as young as 13 have been circulating in some schools

“My view is we need to be supporting our young people to use mobile phones safely and effectively and ideally that means we need to work with them in order to help them … use (the devices) in an ethical and safe manner,” Ms Heath said.

“What we’ve seen (reported this week) is bullying and bullying is not OK, whether it is face-to-face, or online.”

SA Secondary Principals’​ Association president Jayne Heath says education around proper use of social media, rather than phone bans, should be the priority. Picture: Keryn Stevens/ AAP

She said her view was individual schools, in conjunction with their governing councils, were best-placed to come up with policies that worked for its school community.

Australian Education Union state president Andrew Gohl said the reality was phones – and social media – were a part of everyday life, and “we all need to develop good habits”.

“The problem (of online bullying) will be comprehensively pushed back into out of hours … banning by day doesn’t prevent problems by night,” he said.

Mr Gohl also worries teachers will be tasked with becoming “mobile phone police”, if a blanket ban on mobile phones in secondary schools is brought into play – his preference for schools to opt in if deemed helpful on a site-by-site basis.

However, Education Minister Blair Boyer says the government is standing firm on its commitment to ban the mobile phones, which he describes as a “source of distraction”, in secondary schools.

SA Education Minister Blair Boyer says the government committed to banning mobile phones in high schools. File picture: Tom Huntley

Port Lincoln High School hasn’t allowed phones for the past year and a half with principal Todd George saying it is a natural progression from primary school rules. Students place their phones in lockable pouch while at school. File picture by Robert Lang

The devices have been banned in all public primary schools since the start of 2021.

“Mobile phones can also play a role in issues of cyber-bullying between young people, which we’ve seen this week in the media regarding social media platforms,” Mr Boyer said.

Mr Boyer said the preferred model for high schools was still being worked through.

“Some secondary schools have already implemented a ban on mobile phones on their individual sites so we want to work closely with them to see how its positively impacted their school community,” he said.

Mr Boyer said phones were already banned in Victoria’s public schools while in NSW parents were lobbying for phones to be removed from the secondary school setting.

Mobile phones have been banned at Port Lincoln High School since last year with principal Todd George saying it is a natural progression from primary school rules.

“With the double intake of years 7 and 8 this year … we’ve got half the school that have not had mobile phone use in high school – it really becomes a non issue,” he said.

Students lock their phones in a special pouch as they enter the school, only unlocking as they leave but teachers are able to give them access to their phones if needed for a particular lesson.

Originally published as Why phone ban isn’t answer to social media crisis: Top educators reject plan for blanket school ban