Ban on phones in school
The Minister of State for Higher Education Chrysostom Munyingo has in a twist of events rescinded a government decision allowing learners to study with phones.
Earlier this week, Munyingo gave a directive permitting schools to allow learners with mobile phones to use them for study purposes, for academic research while the government drafts an enabling ICT policy.
He explained that since international schools allow learners to use phones, students in other schools can follow suit while the Ministry of Education embeds an ICT policy to regulate the use for all learners in school.
His decision was met with resistance from a section of school heads and stakeholders who expressed worry at the government’s abrupt decision.
Martin Okiria the National Chairperson of Secondary Schools says the decision took them by surprise, he said stakeholders and school leaders needed to first meet and come up with a mechanism of how to implement the use of phones in schools. Okiria said learners might resort to using phones for unnecessary things like pornography and entertainment.
Ban on phones in school
Now, Muyingo has made a uturn on his earlier statements ordering all schools using smart phones for studies to recall them. The Minister says unless the government has fully adopted an ICT policy for the entire education system, no schools will allow use of personal mobile phones.
He adds that learners will in most cases get deducted and interrupted during study time or even use the phones to engage in malpractices like cheating exams.
Munyingo says there is need for the government to provide a system that will ensure an appropriate, beneficial and safer learning environment for both teachers and learners.
The National Curriculum Development Centre-NCDC is meanwhile supporting schools that are encouraging senior one and two learners to use smartphones.
The NCDC says the use of mobile phones is valid because schools are struggling to cope with the new curriculum due to the absence of text books meant to guide them in delivering the new lower secondary curriculum.
John Okumu, the Manager Secondary Department at NCDC said that due to logistical challenges, some schools are yet to receive the text books while others have very large numbers of learners.
’’Schools have been teaching on Zoom and students have been using phones as tools of learning, I don’t see the reason why now, when they are back in school,we stop them, even if these text books were in schools, they would not be enough. Some schools have close to 1000 learners and government cannot provide them all, and even if we told parents to buy text books, the 12 textbooks for S1 alone are expensive,” Okumu explained last week
