THE IRISH SECOND-LEVEL Students’ Union (ISSU) has said it is opposed to plans to ban mobile phone use during the school day.

The ISSU said it “cannot support the proposed plans of a blanket-approach phone ban across second-level schools” as recently announced by Minister for Education Norma Foley.

Foley last week said that she is working to introduce a ban on mobile phones in secondary schools.

This follows on from a new Government policy Foley introduced in November to encourage parents to avoid buying smartphones for primary school-aged children. 

Foley has acknowledged that the “vast majority of schools already have policies in place regarding the use of mobile phones during school hours and are doing great work in this regard.

However, she said it was now time to “take it a step further” and to “copper fasten a mobile phone-free culture in education”.

The new initiative she is working on will advise schools to prohibit the use of mobile phones throughout the entire school day.

While some schools allow access to mobile phones at break times of lunch, Foley’s plan would see mobile phones banned until the end of the school day.

The Education Minister also noted that some pupils may have medical conditions that they monitor through the use of a mobile phone and that “schools will have the discretion to allow this”.

Foley added that “schools will have flexibility about how they implement the ban on mobile phones on their campuses”.

However, the ISSU said there would be “major logistical concerns” surrounding a “system where students would have their phones removed for the school day”.

It added that the “majority of schools already have strategies in place to combat extensive use of mobile phones” and said there was a “lack of engagement with second-level students”.

“Education policies should be student-centric, yet students were not consulted on this matter,” said an ISSU spokesperson.

Jack McGinn, president of the ISSU, said the plans is “not feasible” and that it would result in “adding another responsibility on the system to police phone usage”.

“It could also mean schools having to accept responsibility for the safety of up to 1,000 mobile phones each day,” said McGinn.

He added that “no consultation has been made with relevant stakeholders regarding this” and remarked that mobile phones are often used during the school day for educational reasons.

McGinn said the Department of Education should instead “focus on expanding the IT Support Grant to enable schools to purchase more IT facilities for students”.

Meanwhile, the education officer of the ISSU, Emma Cox, said there are “valid concerns raised that are not being addressed by a blanket ban” and that the ISSU is “in the process of arranging a consultation with Foley to discuss this proposal”.