Bills

Education and Children's Services (Mobile Phones in Schools) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. C. BONAROS (17:26): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Education and Children's Services Act 2019. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. C. BONAROS (17:27): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill is born of continual frustration in what I see as the Minister for Education the Hon. John Gardner's failure to pursue progressive and innovative initiatives across the South Australian education system. Even when Australian and international academic research, his own staff, schools and students provide overwhelming evidence that he could and should roll out a proven and successful initiative to all schools, he sits on his hands, just as he did for a long time with the co-opted private members' bill on menstrual hygiene products, which would have provided free menstrual products in all schools across South Australia.

He has shown time and again that he prefers not to deal with these things consistently across the education sector, and as a result not to be at the forefront of transformational educational initiatives. In what I can only describe as a token effort to follow leaders in other jurisdictions, he has banned mobile phones in primary schools only. He knows mobile phones are least problematic in primary schools but has done nothing to address the issue in secondary schools.

We have all seen via the media how mobile phones can be used in schools, predominantly secondary schools, as insidious tools for harassment and bullying by students against other students. Whether being used to send harassing, threatening text messages or filming acts of violence and/or harassment and/or bullying, mobile phones can have and do have a very significant impact on the health and wellbeing of students. They also have the ability to be and are a major distraction from learning.

Minister Gardner's response for secondary schools is to leave the decision-making to the individual schools and wipe his hands of any responsibility or leadership. This approach is one that runs the risk of most schools missing out and being disadvantaged.

The bill is very short and simple. First, it provides for a trial of secure mobile phone storage devices in 20 government schools for a period of 12 months; secondly, it provides for an evaluation report on the outcome of that trial. Parents, students, educators and academics will be able to contribute to the evaluation.

Students can be exempted by the principal from participation in the trial if, for example, a student requires access to a mobile phone during school hours because of a health condition. If a phone is really absolutely needed during the day for a legitimate purpose—for example, if it is going to be used as a learning tool, a science experiment or a call to a parent—then it can be unlocked, used and then locked again. Importantly, the student does not relinquish possession of their phone at any time, removing responsibility for the student's property from the school or the teachers.

Unlike the minister's unsophisticated ban in primary schools the bill does not ban mobile phones. Indeed, in New York blanket bans were found to be less effective in terms of the approach adopted by schools. Roy Morgan Research reveals that 94 per cent of 14 to 17-year-olds now have smartphones. A Victorian survey revealed that nearly 80 per cent of 2,000 adults interviewed supported an absence of mobile phones from classrooms.

The evidence available from South Australia, interstate and overseas shows the overwhelming social, cultural and educational positive impacts of removing access to mobile phone transmission during school hours. It is this strong evidence base and the commitment to gather more data to drive policy on managing access to mobile phones during school hours that provides the basis for this private member's bill.

As stated in the bill, the purpose is to determine how effective such devices are in reducing the disruption caused by mobile phones in government secondary schools. Early results from 900 schools with mobile phone-free zones internationally showed that of those surveyed there was a 74 per cent improvement in student behaviour and 83 per cent in student engagement in the classroom. There was also a commensurate improvement in student interaction and communication in the yard at recess and lunchtime, along with more physical activity instead of sitting around passively with a mobile phone mindlessly scrolling and messaging.

Not surprisingly, bullying and social media postings throughout the day decreased in mobile phone-free zones. Further, filming schoolyard fights and sending provocative or sexting messages between students and groups inside and outside of the school are not possible during the school day. This also results in a lessening of that behaviour after school hours. Research shows that up to 25 per cent of students who were bullied during their school lives experienced long-lasting consequences which can lead to other risk behaviours such as alcohol and drug abuse, chronic health issues and a greater likelihood of other offending. The bill can only deal with mobile phones during school hours but as I said I am confident it will have a significant impact on reducing bullying and improving cyber safety.

While I congratulate and thank the Australian Education Union, the South Australian schools and teachers like Iain Love and Emma Oliver at Meningie Area School, Kate Higgins at Port Lincoln High School and John Pirie Secondary and Tintinara Area High School who as early adopters of the scheme have seen firsthand the enormous potential of mobile phone-free zones, I do not want to see South Australian public schools denied access to this initiative and therefore be disadvantaged because of a lack of leadership and drive from the minister and his department. We know from speaking directly to these principals and teachers that one of the things they have called for, which is exactly the same as in the debate that we had on sanitary products, was consistency across the board and across all schools.

Several private schools in South Australia are already onto this, with Wilderness School and St Michael's College implementing the initiative in 2020. The bill that I am proposing is to trial mobile phone-free spaces in 20 government schools, as I said, to evaluate whether the early learnings and experiences at the other 85 schools throughout Australia which have adopted this initiative should be rolled out to all South Australian schools.

It is important to note at this point that in other trials the success has been extremely overwhelming in other jurisdictions as well. In New South Wales every school that trialed this initiative has made it a permanent measure at their schools. Indeed, the New South Wales government has completed a comprehensive review into the non-educational use of mobile phones in government schools in that state and intends to commission world-first independent qualitative and quantitative research into a range of mobile device usage in schools.

Creating these mobile-free spaces where students remain in possession of their phone is technologically quite easy to achieve. Under my proposal students remain in possession of their phone, as I said, at all times; however, as they enter the school yard, they place their phone into a special pouch which locks automatically and which the school provides to the students and which negates the phone receiving a telecommunications signal.

The pouches remain closed and secured in the student's possession while they are at school and throughout the course of the day, and they can only be opened with special magnetic devices strategically located throughout a school, predominantly at the entry and exit gates. If we were allowed to use props, I would show you one of these devices. I have it in my office. They are amazing. You put your phone in the pouch; it locks. You then press it against this little magnetic round disc; it unlocks and you remove your phone. Students keep that pouch with them all the time.

I should say at this point that so popular are these things in terms of focusing the attention of audiences that they are used widely now at concerts, at comedy shows, at fee-paying entertainment venues that people might attend, or, for instance, during the Fringe Festival. They are used by artists who want the full attention of their audience and do not want them to be distracted by a mobile phone and also do not want their audience, frankly, taking photos and looking at the performance through the lens of the phone rather than actually watching what is happening in front of them.

It is amazing technology. It is so simple, though, and considerable work has been done in terms of rolling that out in schools across Australia. Considerable work is done prior to implementation to train and support staff, students, parents and school councils, because the trial does involve a significant culture shift and some new processes on entry and exit. I know that the company that has the product I am talking about actually goes out to the schools and talks to the students, talks to the teachers, talks to the principals and teaches them all how to use it. The response to date has been very positive.

I visited Meningie school late last year, I believe it was, and spoke to teachers and the principal. The one thing that struck me was that there were kids outside shooting hoops, kicking balls. There were kids sitting around having a laugh at lunch, running around, playing, as you would expect in a school setting. Whereas, I am told that prior to the mobile-free zone those students would be sitting head down, glued to their screens, texting each other, even though they were sitting right next to each other, much as many of us do—all the sorts of behaviours that we know are not good for us and particularly are not good for us in a learning setting.

I did say to the media today that perhaps we could order 22 of the pouches and circulate them in this place and see how that goes. These mobile-free zones have been successfully implemented in over 1,250 schools in the US. They have also, as I said, been used at weddings, at concerts, at theatres, in courts and even in parliaments—those of Ontario, Israel and France. So it is not such a ludicrous idea, apparently.

Private enterprise has also recognised the economic and work health and safety benefits of having their staff free of all distractions during work hours. Indeed, some of the teachers at schools with mobile-free zones report that not only do they have more time now that they are not policing mobile phone use and incidents up to 600 times a week, but they also have adopted the technology to improve their own focus in the classroom.

In closing, I note—I hope I note—the support on this issue generally of the Hon. Emily Bourke, who spoke passionately last year about our addictions to mobile phones and what a distraction they can be in terms of the educational outcomes for our children. I note that she also noted leadership is not about choosing the most popular or easiest option, and I am looking forward to the support of both the opposition and, indeed, the crossbench and the government in what I see as a very straightforward and sensible reform.

To address once again the comments of the minister, the basis on which this ban was only extended to primary schools was that it was not needed in high schools, that those students are much older, that they can be more responsible and that they use phones as a learning tool. Well, there are other learning tools that you can access in high schools. There are laptops, iPads and computers, and if there is a particular need to access a phone during a coordinated project or lesson, that can be arranged very easily simply by unlocking the phone for those students and then it can be locked again and those phones can be put back in students' pockets or schoolbags.

There is no justification for excluding high schools. Indeed, we know that the majority of the sorts of behaviours that I have outlined—the bullying, the harassment, the text messaging, the sexting, all those things—do not take place in the primary school setting. The majority of that behaviour takes place in the high school setting and we need to be focusing our attention there as well. With those words, I look forward to the debate of the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.G.E. Hood.