Education Minister Paul Givan is expected to advise schools in the North to restrict pupils from using mobile phones during the day.
BBC News NI reports the DUP Minister is to issue new guidance to schools to crack down on mobile phone use.
He is expected to provide detailed guidance today in a circular from the Department of Education to all school principals and boards of governors.
It is understood to include advice that mobile phones should not be visible during the school day, including at break and lunchtimes.
It is expected to say that mobile phone bans might also help to reduce student distraction during lessons.
A total ban on pupils bringing phones into school is thought to be most appropriate for primary schools.
But a ban is less likely to be suggested for post-primary schools.
Pupils in post-primary schools handing in their phones to staff at the start of the day is thought to be one of the approaches recommended.
For example, the guidance is likely to make exceptions for pupils who need to have a phone for medical reasons.
It is also likely to say it is still important that pupils are taught digital skills.
However, it will point out that research has raised concerns about the negative impact of smartphone and social media use on children and young people’s mental health.
While the guidance is not legally binding, schools will be expected to observe it in drawing up their own rules.
Some schools already have policies in place that restrict mobile phone use by pupils.
In many cases, pupils can bring a phone to school, but they must not be visible during the school day.
That means pupils cannot take them out during classes unless they are part of a lesson, or use them at break or lunchtimes.
In some cases, if a pupil is caught using a phone, it is confiscated, and the pupil can collect it at the end of the school day.
Derry’s Lisneal College already has strict rules on pupil’s use of mobile phones.
Pupils hand their phones to their form teacher in the morning, getting it back at the end of the day.
Principal Michael Allen told BBC’s Good Morning Ulster radio programme the rules encouraged learning and kept pupils safe from online harm while at school.
“If you can imagine sitting in a classroom with a mobile phone in your pocket, even if that phone is never out, and that mobile phone buzzes, rings, chimes.
“No matter how focused you are as a student, whether you decide to take that phone out and look which some pupils may do, or even if you don’t, you spend the next two or three minutes thinking ‘who was that? I wonder who wants me?’.
He said that scenario could play out more than 30 times per day for each pupil.
Tags: