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Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027
- shantnutiwari 3mo agoSame here in uk-- phones are not allowed (at least in my count yin England)-- and if found are confiscated.
- everdrive 3mo agoWorkplace next!
- bilekas 3mo agoI think you might need to narrow down what kind of workplaces... A taxi/bus driver, agreed. A an integration engineer, hard disagree. Either way, when you're an adult, assuming you would be in a workplace, you're maturity should decide. If you want to be a distracted employee and risk termination, you're an adult.
- weezing 3mo agoYeah, especially in Indian scam call centers.
- Cider9986 3mo agoActually effective way to protect kids without massive societal consequences and it also improves learning.
- basisword 3mo agoHow is this effective at all? Every kid will continue to use them surreptitiously, as they always have.
- happypappy123 3mo ago[dead]
- basisword 3mo agoThe only friction here is 'you're not allowed to do that' - which doesn't typically work on teenagers. We had the same rules for dumbbphones and iPod's 20 years ago and it didn't work then.
- oblio 3mo agoI've talked to parents of kids where they banned smartphones and the difference is palpable. And good.
- Jtsummers 3mo agoIn many US schools, they'd take those things away (and return them at end of day, typically) 20-30 years ago. But it helps when it's policy, if it's not a policy then the teacher has no backing from the school.
- bilekas 3mo agoIt definitely reduced usesge though. I was the same age in teens with dumb phones and they were only banned in class. Either way, it's better to have the restrictions in this case than a free for all because teenagers will push limits constantly. I don't see a downside to this.
- throw1234567891 3mo agoIf it’s legally grounded you get more options.
- amelius 3mo ago> which doesn't typically work on teenagers Depends. You have "good kids" and "bad kids". If this law helps the good kids, then that's at least a win.
- zdragnar 3mo agoIt absolutely worked in my school a little over 20 years ago. Teachers and staff always took away disallowed devices and that set the tone quite well.
- oblio 3mo agoThis type of repetitive comment[1] is a bit like the bike lanes discussion: 1.City introduces bike lanes on street. 2. Residents complain about parking spaces going away, businesses complain about future bankruptcies due to fewer customers, general uproar is huge. 3. Residents discover bike lanes are quiet, and they also reduce ambient noise levels due to reduced car traffic, air is also cleaner, roads and intersections are safer. 4. Businesses (re) discover that cars don't buy things, people in big metal boxes going 50+kmph don't buy as many things. But people biking and walking are... foot traffic... and business goes up. 5. City decides to introduce bike lanes on another street. 6. Cycle repeats. To your point about phones, it is very effective. If nobody can take their phone out on the school premise, suddenly it's very obvious who's trying to break the rule and guess what. Kids play, kids talk face to face, etc. * * * [1] This type of comment is one of the first things posted for these types of articles.
- ck2 3mo agoand completely seriously: 7. right-wing gains power and bans bike lanes anyway, labeling them "leftist" city after city in various states/countries but back to phones the real problem is they can't rule that parents must be responsible for their children I find the moral panic about kids with phones/internet access fascinating because of course it's a problem, but it's not the root cause of the problem ps. I am so old we weren't allowed to have calculators in school, absolutely forbidden
- oblio 3mo ago> the real problem is they can't rule that parents must be responsible for their children It's impossible for the average parent to police their child's smartphone. They just don't have, and never will have, the technical skills. > I find the moral panic about kids with phones/internet access fascinating And for those parents, which are quite rare, that do have the technical skills AND the involvement to ban smartphone usage at young ages, guess what. When Joey and Mickey and Sarah all have smartphones and are doom scrolling TikTok, even those parents lose. If all socializing moves to smartphones, the weirdo kids that don't have them or access to the "cool stuff" are automatically excluded. It's extremely alienating and nothing like not having calculators or PCs. Back in your day (or mine), huge corporations more akin to drug dealers employing tens of psychologists weren't trying to get kids addicted to calculators.
- cromka 3mo agoEvery kid? Seriously?
- vel0city 3mo agoI can only speak for what I've seen, and my state has banned phones during school. Before the ban, students would just openly use devices during class. Teachers were essentially powerless to do anything. Kids would be openly playing games, watching videos, etc with practically no recourse. Now with the state law actually forcing it, enforcement is mugh higher. If phones are caught out the administration takes the devices and requires a parent to come into the school to sign off and release the device. Does some usage still happen? Sure. Is it far less than before and considerably less during actual classtime? Absolutely. It's like you're arguing murder still happens even though it's illegal so what's the point of making it a crime.
- georgeburdell 3mo agoStanford researchers studied the second assertion and found no change https://ed.stanford.edu/news/national-study-school-cell-phone-bans-shows-benefits-are-not-immediate https://ed.stanford.edu/news/national-study-school-cell-phon...
- RandomLensman 3mo agoNo immediate benefits but could be beneficial long-term (increased well-being but not the same as learning). Whether things in Czechia are comparable to that US situation I wouldn't know.
- eesmith 3mo agoBear in mind that those conclusions are for a different student population -- country of course, but also age range: Czech schools: "The new measure, which has been at the center of heated debates in recent months, will apply in kindergartens and elementary schools, most likely from September 2027. ... It doesn't apply, however, to secondary schools, universities or vocational schools." The Stanford study was based on "more than 43,000 middle and high schools nationwide". Also, while half of the authors are Stanford research associates, the other half are at other institutions. The publication is a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. And from the preregistration, "Our measure of treatment (i.e., whether a given school has a true phone ban at a particular point in time) is based on organizing sales and shipping data from Yondr (i.e., a company that sells lockable phone pouches)", a company they partnered with for the study. How .. odd. Is sales data for a single company really the right way to tell if a school has a true phone ban?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- nephihaha 3mo agoAt the same time as a lot of other countries.
- asveikau 3mo agoI don't understand the legislative pushes for some of these things. Schools can already say "no phones during instructional hours". Many of them do. I guess legislating it can mandate the policy across a school district, state, country etc., so perhaps that makes sense. But others call for outright bans for kids, all the time. Parents can also restrict usage or set rules for appropriate use. Many do.
- throwa356262 3mo agoHave you talked to a teacher lately?
- asveikau 3mo agoI'm the primary caretaker to two kids. So yes.
- Rebelgecko 3mo agoParents are responsible for a surprisingly large fraction of the notifications kids get at school
- vitro 3mo agoBut if kids refuse to put their phones away during classes, teachers have no right to take them since they are the kids' personal property. And yes, it is in the school rules that you cannot use your phone during class. My SO teaches English and struggles with it permanently. Kids are on their phones and not paying attention to the lecture. And no support from the headmaster. Other teachers claim they do not have the problem to save face, but then you talk to an expat teacher who was in their class for observation and hear something else.
- whateveracct 3mo ago> But if kids refuse to put their phones away during classes, teachers have no right to take them since they are the kids' personal property. And yes, it is in the school rules that you cannot use your phone during class. Is this true? When I was in high school, teachers could take away your phones.
- HtmlProgrammer 3mo agoWe were told no phones in schools. I used my phone. They confiscated it for 2 weeks. I was like yeah fair enough. I don’t understand why this isn’t done now?
- criddell 3mo agoMy kids were basically required to have a phone for school. In theory they could use a laptop for everything but in practice it was assumed you had a phone. They were supposed to use the calendar for assignments (and were given time to use the calendar), the teacher would tell them to take a picture of the white board with their homework assignment on it, and they used some private app (don't know the name of it) for messaging the teacher. This was a few years ago though, so maybe now the tide has turned? Edit: The rules have changed: https://tea.texas.gov/taa-letters/implementation-texas-house-bill-1481-student-use-personal-communication-devices-school https://tea.texas.gov/taa-letters/implementation-texas-house...
- tyrust 3mo agoThis is pretty wild, I had no idea any school was like this. What grade and area was this in? Public school?
- criddell 3mo agoHigh school, central Texas, public school. I think the idea was to teach appropriate use of devices.
- RiverStone 3mo agoThat’s actually pretty cool if they’re being taught to use the organizational tools of the phone. I’m strongly against phones in school, but as a child myself, I was extremely unorganized. And did not get my act together fully until college, when I had a simple laptop with a calendar app where I could plan out all my classes, assignments, etc.
- Markoff 3mo agothat would be illegal right now, kid/parents can call police you stole their phone and you would be in trouble with police, any school rule isn't above the law, which is why there must be confiscation option clearly mentioned in the smartphone ban law
- Aerroon 3mo agoDo we have any actual evidence that this significantly improves things? For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change? Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"? You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to provide measurable improvements.
- armchairhacker 3mo agoThey’re limiting freedom of children in school, who already don’t have the freedom to ignore other school policies. Studies show phone bans help school performance, albeit not by much immediately, but there’s not much upside.
- Aerroon 3mo agoCan any of these studies actually show measurable results in something like PISA? Because "studies show" during the replication crisis is not convincing when the effect doesn't seem to show up in actual test scores. You can easily see the effect of COVID in PISA scores for example.
- cromka 3mo agoThere's been several pilots that prove this being very effective. Czechia is not first doing this.
- Aerroon 3mo agoGreat - let's hear the measurable benefits then. How much higher will Czechia's score be on the next PISA test based on this? France: >Mobile phones have been prohibited for students from 3 to 15 years of age, since September 2018, although they were first banned in classroom time in 2010. French PISA results for math, science, reading: * 2022: 474, 487, 474 * 2018: 495, 493, 493 * 2015: 493, 495, 499 * 2012: 495, 499, 505 * 2009: 497, 498, 496 I'm really impressed by the improvements of nothing.
- armchairhacker 3mo agoSeriously, why isn’t this implemented everywhere?
- quacked 3mo agoThis doesn't go far enough, in my opinion. I think all screens should be banned from schools. No TV, no phones, no projectors, no slides. No shortcuts for anybody, no distractions. Everything handwritten. I know this sounds like I'm sarcastically criticizing phone bans but I'm serious. (Edit: obviously will need some accommodations for disabled students, and computer labs will have to exist for technical literacy classes.)
- troupo 3mo agoTVs are good when used appropriately. We watched Macbeth for the literature class.
- jmye 3mo ago[dead]
- ZpJuUuNaQ5 3mo agoHow would that be beneficial? We don't need to make teachers' jobs more difficult than they already are by removing all the aid brought by digitalization.
- quacked 3mo agoTeachers' jobs are difficult because they're expected to be behavioral specialists, social workers, and prison wardens. If they didn't have to do that, they wouldn't need to rely so terribly on printed worksheets and PowerPoints.
- ronsor 3mo agoWhether those things are distractions depends on what they're used for. I'm fairly certain schools had projectors a few decades ago, and nothing bad came of it. You don't really need to ban phones from schools; just ban them in class. I don't know why this stuff is treated as such a big deal. Students should pay attention in class, which means not using anything (not devices, paper, books, etc.) except as needed for instruction.
- entrepy123 3mo agoPlenty of Palo Alto parents seem to want basically what Czechia appears to be doing: https://www.paloaltoonline.com/palo-alto-schools/2026/07/10/kids-said-they-would-rebel-parents-hope-to-limit-screen-time-on-campus-anyway/ https://www.paloaltoonline.com/palo-alto-schools/2026/07/10/... https://www.fournorms.com/campaigns/petition-for-intentional-technology-use-in-pausd-schools https://www.fournorms.com/campaigns/petition-for-intentional... https://www.schoolsbeyondscreens.com/reform-proposals https://www.schoolsbeyondscreens.com/reform-proposals
- mono442 3mo agoDon't they have more important issues to tackle?
- shdh 3mo agoBan social media for anyone under 18 while you're at it
- perelin 3mo agoGerman here. Have a kid in elementary school and one in middle school. No phones allowed whatsoever. But to be fair: every school in Germany can decide that for themselves. But when we were choosing schools, all schools had similar rulesets. Some event prohibited smart watches.
- Markoff 3mo agoCzechia had per school rules as well (my kids school bans them in school premises, which leads to groups of kids starting at phones in front of the school, sad sight), but as discussed yesterday by minister of education it's clearly not effective and still huge part of kids use them during school breaks despite more than 90% school officially banning them. Czechia was one of the, if not the last country in EU without nationwide smartphone regulation Btw I can't imagine putting my kids in education system in country where you don't have home schooling alternative to state indoctrination in case you need it. And German 2015 immigration crisis and green deal clearly show us your leaders can't be trusted at all.
- ChrisRR 3mo agoI hope that it'll have a positive impact on kids' attention spans