Ever since the popularity of smart phones, there has been an ongoing discussion regarding whether students should bring them to school. At this year's Two Sessions, delegates bring up the issue again, reports NetEase.
"While smart phones can help students better communicate with their parents and acquire necessary information for study," stated delegate Cai Xue'en, who is the Chief Executive Partner of a law office in Hubei. "Most students tend to get distracted by the entertaining functions of the phones."
According to Cai, the mental state of primary and middle school students is still at an immature stage. Therefore they can easily suffer both mental and physical damage from using mobile phones for a long time, and there should be regulations to inhibit their behaviors.
Cai isn't the only delegate advocating to prohibit students from using phones at school. "Based on the statistics from authorized mental institutions, teenagers aged from 12-16 are at high risk of Internet addiction," clarified delegate Xiao Shengfang, president of Guangdong Association of Lawyers. "To solve the imminent issue, the Ministry of Education should ban students from using smart phones, tablets and other gadgets which can connect to the Internet."
As a matter of fact, some schools across the country have already taken the initiative and waged war against smart phones on the campus. In Guangzhou, a school specially set up a room, which looks exactly like a bank vault, to store smart phones from all student body. Students are required to hand in their phones every Sunday when they come to the school and cannot reclaim them until Friday when they leave.
Image via The Paper
Meanwhile, in Henan, a high school approached the issue in a more brutal way. In 2017, the school was exposed smashing confiscated phones in front of all students. When asked if the solution was over the top, the school replied that they would "smash forever."
Image via The Paper
Although the proposal hasn’t been officially approved, it has already received online claps and cheer from netizens (from parents rather than students, we imagine).
"Totally agree," writes one netizen. "Kids' self-control ability is still inadequate to deal with the complicated Internet world."
Suffice to say, there are also netizens think the suggestion goes too far.
"Even adults sometimes can't live without phones," comments another. "Why do they ask kids to achieve what their parents failed?"
[Cover image via Gankan]
