New Zealand To Proscribe Use Of Moblie Phones In Schools

New Zealand’s conservative prime minister, Christopher Luxon, announced on Friday that cell phones will no longer be allowed in classrooms as his government attempts to reverse the nation’s alarmingly low reading rates.

Although reading and writing proficiency in New Zealand schools used to rank among the highest in the world, some experts are concerned that there may be a “crisis” in the classroom.

Within his first 100 days in office, Luxon said that he would outlaw cell phones in schools, a move that was tested in the US, UK, and France to varying degrees of success.

Luxon claimed the action will help pupils focus and put an end to disruptive behavior.

“We are going to ban phones across New Zealand in schools. We want our kids to learn and we want our teachers to teach,” Luxon said.

A “literacy crisis” was predicted by researchers from the New Zealand charity Education Hub in 2022 after discovering that over one-third of 15-year-olds could hardly read or write.

“That something must be done to address the distressingly low literacy rates in Aotearoa New Zealand is clear,” they said.

In its first week in office, Luxon’s conservative government—which took office on Monday—has been bogged down in controversy.

Naija News recalls that physicians issued a dire warning to the nation about an impending “tragedy” to public health after the New Zealand government abruptly abandoned globally innovative tobacco control policies that sought to ban the sale of cigarettes to everyone born after 2008.