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Leopold Chen

Zhengzhou, in central China, has banned the use of mobile phones in primary and secondary schools – the first legislature in the country to do so.
The city’s lawmakers on Friday passed a decision to strengthen restrictions on cellphone use by students, with the move taking immediate effect.
Schools are required to tightly restrict students from bringing phones onto campuses and “no phones should be brought into classrooms unless for teaching purposes”, according to the decision by the Standing Committee of the Zhengzhou People’s Congress.
“If students have to bring their phones to school, their parents or guardians should submit a written application to the school,” it says. “Student phones allowed on campus should be kept by the school administration.”
The ban applies to all primary, secondary and secondary vocational schools in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province.


Schools are also required to install “adequate” public phones on their campuses so that students can contact their parents if necessary.
Parents, meanwhile, should regulate phone use by their children after school to “prevent or correct students’ addiction to phones and the internet as early as possible”.
A spokesperson for the legislature told local media that the decision aimed to spell out the duties of the government, schools and parents in regulating the phone use of students.
The spokesperson said it also aimed to improve self-protection and self-regulation by students.
It follows a move in the southern city of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, in October, when legislation was also passed to regulate cellphone use at primary and secondary schools.
That legislation requires schools in Guangzhou to centrally manage the use of mobile phones on campus, and for parents to regulate their children’s after-school phone use.
But it gives schools more flexibility, saying that they “may prohibit students from bringing digital devices to campus or using them in school”, and that “schools may establish their own digital device regulations based on laws and their own specific circumstances”.
The moves by local legislatures come after the Ministry of Education issued a directive in early 2021 that states phones are “in principle” forbidden on school campuses. It also required schools to include phone management in their daily administrative frameworks.
The ministry said the directive was aimed at protecting students’ eyesight, getting them to focus on their studies, preventing addiction to the internet and digital games, and improving their health.
The directive also calls for schools to set up alternative ways for students and their parents to communicate, such as installing public phones on campus and integrating calling functions into student identity cards.
Teachers are also banned from assigning homework via phones or asking students to do their homework using phones under the education ministry directive.


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Some schools in China had already banned the use of mobile phones in class, such as a vocational school in Hangzhou, eastern China, where a rack to store students' mobile phones hangs next to the blackboard. Mobile phones have been banned from the country’s primary and secondary schools. Photo: Getty Images

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China

Politics

Legislature imposes ban at all primary, secondary and secondary vocational schools in the Henan capital


Legislature imposes ban at all primary, secondary and secondary vocational schools in the Henan capital.


Communist Party politics