ATHENS – Students in Greece likely won’t like it but they will not be allowed to use mobile phones in schools when the academic year opens, another attempt being  made to stop it to prevent cyberbullying.

The use of the phones has technically been banned since 2002 but ignored as students use them surreptitiously during classes or at other times, and some teachers and officials have been said reluctant to confront them.

A regulation was supposed to be implemented in March, that also provided for expelling students who use their phones for cyberbullying, but this time the government said they will be required to keep them in their bags, said Euronews.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/08/31/greece-announces-new-rules-banning-mobile-phones-in-schools-from-september

The new regulations – essentially the same as the old regulations not enforced –  were announced after a meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Education Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis.

“Students can bring their mobile phones to school, but they must keep them inside their school bags during the entire school day,” Mitsotakis said in Athen as he announced the Cellphone in the School Bag campaign.

“Scientific data on how the use of mobile phones during the school day affects the learning process itself are overwhelming. From distraction to other important issues, it is clear that mobile phones have no place in school during the school day,” he said. It had been required previously for students to hand in their phones at the start of classes but no reports why that wasn’t done either.

Pupils who don’t comply will be excluded from school for one day. In the case of a repeat offense, teachers have the power to eject them for several days and filming classmates or teachers without permission could bring expulsion.

HOLD THE PHONE

“We don’t necessarily expect 100 percent compliance from day one, but we do want the children, their parents and educators to understand the importance of pupils being focused entirely on the educational process at school,” Mitsotakis said.

A spokesperson for the high school teachers’ union OLME said on Greek radio that it was important to work to convince pupils to switch off their phones and not just threaten them with punishment.

Greece acted a week after mobile phones were outlawed in 373 schools in the primarily French-speaking Belgian region of Wallonia, the penalties now the most severe students would face – if the regulations are enforced.

When the initial regulations were first announced in the spring it was essentially dismissed by students long used to leniency and laxity in the schools and many teachers looking the other way when phones were used.

Cyberbullying was behind the regulations and a high-ranking ministry official, not named, told Kathimerini when the first round was announced that the use of phones to ridicule classmates had gotten out of hand.

“This is a new form of violence. We have complaints that many children take videos in the bathrooms to make fun of their classmates or create deepfake videos – i.e. edited videos through AI apps,” said the official.

“A penalty will be automatically imposed on the pupil, from the moment he/she posts on social media a video from within the school,” he added, while stressing that posting another student’s personal data without their consent will lead to permanent expulsion, which hasn’t reportedly happened.

“A study in the context of the PISA 2022 competition showed that one in three students seems to be distracted by digital devices at school. Also 25 percent of pupils are distracted when their classmates use digital devices during the lesson,” said Chryssa Sofianopoulou, Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics and Telematics at the Harokopio University of Athens.