The Editor, Sir:

I write because the Minister of Education has invited contributions to the debate on the topic of cellphones in school. As the principal of a school that experimented with allowing limited use of the cellphone at school, and has since then banned i and one who is cognisant of the fact that school is a place of learning, I feel qualified to make a meaningful contribution.

During the period mentioned, the students were allowed to have the phones as long as they did not ring during class time. If they did, then the phones would be confiscated. What happened? Every day we had at least one incident of cellphone problems. They included, ringing during class time; fights over ownership; refusing to hand over the phone when told to do so by a teacher; theft of phone by another student; student held up on the road and phone stolen, etc., etc., etc.

This was during the time when cellphones were not prevalent. Therefore, the number of occurrences could be multiplied by a very large number to reflect current realities. I did not include the number of times that parents came to the school to demand audience with the principal or teacher involved. They wanted you to leave what you are doing and attend to them immediately.

Recently, it has become common for members of the society to demand that teachers take on more and more non-teaching tasks and responsibilities. I noticed that this newspaper even suggested that more policing needs to be put in place to accommodate the use of cellphones in school. Another suggestion was that the phones are kept by someone at the school until the child is ready to go home.

Phones for staff

I must point out that, there are three categories of personnel employed in the schools. They are teaching, administrative, and ancillary staff. Who should add cellphones to their job description? I can tell you that teachers, including the principal, are already overwhelmed by the number of activities that reduces the already meagre number of teaching hours.

If we look at this as a part of the learning process, what are the learning outcomes expected that must be achieved at school. I cannot think of any, but I can think of some that we could do without at the school.

The minister said he is not thinking about banning cellphones, but regulating their use in schools. I suggest that the time and energy that would be required to deal with cellphone-related activities would require that a department that is fully staffed with adequate resources be established in each school.

I am, etc.,

CYNTHIA P. COOKE

Principal

Camperdown High School