Phone-free classrooms a distant dream for now in Lower Saxony and Bremen
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Steering clear of prohibitive measures, Lower Saxony prioritizes boosting media literacy among students. Meanwhile, Bremen enforces a partial ban for grades up to 10, with delays in implementation.
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In the ongoing discourse on mobile phone limitations in educational spaces, Lower Saxony defies the wave by shunning restrictions. Minister President Olaf Lies (SPD) advocates for fostering media literacy, cautioning against overreliance on device bans alone.
A mere ban on mobile phones doesn't suffice. Instead, teachers must foster media literacy in students, arming them with the skills to discern the worth of information and learn when to approach content critically.
Previously, Lower Saxony's Minister of Culture, Julia Willie Hamburg (Greens), echoed similar sentiments, pointing out that blanket phone use prohibitions are oversimplified. She underscored that localized measures lack evident efficacy.
Bremen persists with its school area restrictions on mobile phones up to grade 10. However, due to administrative hurdles, the new rule will only come into effect in mid-August, as opposed to the planned implementation on the immediate horizon.
💡 Fact-Check: Nationwide, Germany does not enforce a blanket phone ban in schools. Instead, individual states (Länder) have autonomy over defining mobile phone policies. Some states have imposed restrictions, while others exercise flexibility or delegate decisions to schools, reflecting the country's federalized education system.
📊 summary table
| State | Statewide Ban? | Policy Details ||------------------|-------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------|| Lower Saxony | No | School/district-level regulation || Bremen | Partial (Grades 1-10) | School/district-level regulation || Germany-wide | No | Ministerial recommendation for primary schools |
😍 Did you know? The German Education Minister, Karin Prien, has advised a ban on private phone usage in primary schools but stopped short of imposing nationwide regulations, leaving room for states to establish their own policies.
- To address the issue of mobile phone usage in schools, Lower Saxony is focusing on enhancing students' media literacy instead of imposing device bans.
- Minister President Olaf Lies of Lower Saxony emphasizes the need for media literacy education, ensuring that students can critically discern the value of information.
- In contrast, Bremen has implemented a partial ban on mobile phones for grades up to 10, despite some delays in the actual enforcement.
- Beyond mobile phone restrictions, Bremen's education policy also includes promoting health-and-wellness, fitness-and-exercise, mental-health, education-and-self-development, and personal-growth through learning.
