No need to ban cell phones in schools

Digitization Skills supply Education and training
Like it or not, digitalization will become an increasingly important part of people's daily lives. This applies to all sectors, including schools. Politicians focusing on the disadvantages of mobile phones in education instead of their advantages is symptomatic of a perspective that is not sustainable in the long term. We need a policy that truly empowers our schools to equip children for the digital future.

The pace of technological development is constantly accelerating, and as the world becomes more complex, it also becomes more difficult to understand. While it is difficult to predict exactly what will happen in the future, what is likely is that increasing automation - both supplementing and replacing human labor with computing power - will mean that more and more people will need to retrain or change careers. The education system will no longer be able to be designed in such a way that it can be expected that an education in youth will be enough to have a job for the rest of your life. Learning will be a lifelong and ongoing project.

For the individual, it will essentially be a matter of constantly adapting to a contemporary world of increasing complexity. This is why digital tools will be indispensable educational resources, without which it will be impossible to sort through all the information available. Schools should therefore not alienate themselves from technology, but rather embrace it.

When thinking about the future of education, it is therefore necessary to anticipate developments. Digital tools must occupy a central position in the classroom. To focus primarily on the negative effects of mobile phones on teaching is therefore to miss a crucial perspective on what must be a natural part of future teaching. Putting a greater focus on the possibilities of digitalization in the education system should be a given.

Digitization is to a large extent also a management issue. It should be up to the principal and the teacher in charge to decide when mobile phones should be part of the teaching or not. Politicians trying to control this from a central point is a disempowerment of the leadership of school staff.

IT&Telecom companies are calling on politicians not to say no to mobile phones in classrooms, but yes to the new technology. Now more than ever, vision and a long-term approach are needed.