This back-to-school season, some 180 middle schools in France are experimenting with a “digital break”, or a total ban on mobile phones, before a possible generalization in January 2025. What does this experiment consist of? How can it be deployed? At what cost?
– What does the law say? –
Since 2018, a law has prohibited “the use of a mobile phone or any other electronic communications terminal equipment” in “nurseries, elementary schools and middle schools”. In high schools, “the internal regulations may prohibit the use by a student” in “all or part of the premises of the establishment”.
In colleges, the rule is that the phone must be “turned off and put away”, explains Jérôme Fournier, national secretary of SE-Unsa.
For Bruno Bobkiewicz, secretary general of SNPDEN-Unsa, the leading union of school principals, “it’s going pretty well overall”. “The level of use of mobile phones in middle schools is very low today”, he adds. In the event of a problem, “we have the means to act”. “We confiscate phones, we summon parents, we punish students”.
– Why this experiment? –
The experiment was launched following the recommendations of the “screens” commission wanted by Emmanuel Macron. A report submitted by experts to the head of state considers that mobile phones should be banned before the age of 11, while strictly limiting access to social networks for adolescents under 15.
“The objective is really to allow our students to have better concentration during school time at middle school, and also at school, for that matter. It is also to give them or give them back the possibility of having links with their classmates during times that are not class time,” said the Minister of National Education, Nicole Belloubet, on Tuesday during a visit to a middle school in Massy (Essonne).
It is also “obviously to fight against the phenomenon of harassment which takes place on social networks during this school time”, she added.
For Jérôme Fournier, “the objective, in fact, is to respond to the difficulties of colleges for which the current rule is not sufficient”, even if “in the vast majority of colleges, it works”.
– What does it consist of? –
The experiment will involve more than 50,000 middle school students. “It is up to each establishment to determine practical arrangements”, with the possibility of setting up “a locker system”, the ministry explains.
When students enter the school, they will have to leave their phones in boxes or lockers. They will collect them after class.
This ban “is valid during school and extracurricular time. It is also effective during all school activities organized outside” the establishment.
– What cost? –
A generalisation of this system, planned for January 2025, would be “hasty and costly”, with a bill that could amount to “nearly 130 million euros” for the 6,980 middle schools in France, denounced the departments responsible for the construction of middle schools.
Ms Belloubet estimated that “things will be put in place gradually”. “The financial costs seem quite modest to me”, she added, citing the example of the Claudine Hermann college in Massy, where the system consists of “the acquisition of portable cases (one case required per class, editor’s note) which cost 60 euros each”.
For the French Departments, “responsibility in the event of theft from these lockers installed in colleges is also a “serious” issue.
– Doubts and criticisms –
This experiment also arouses skepticism in the teaching community for several reasons.
For the Snes-FSU, the leading union for middle and high schools, this measure “lacks consultation” and “raises questions”. “How does it work when entering the establishment? How does it work during the day?”, knowing “that there are sometimes students who have two mobile phones”, asks its general secretary, Sophie Vénétitay.
For SE-Unsa too, “to resolve one difficulty, we will create another”. “We will need staff to manage the arrival, drop-off and departure, and recovery of mobile phones. Who?” asks Jérôme Fournier.
“It’s going to be complicated to implement,” agrees Bruno Bobkiewicz. If the student has a phone in the bottom of his bag, “I’m not going to search the bag to take it from him.”
asm-slb/alu/tes
