After the Minister for Education, Norma Foley announced that smartphones were one of the top three items raised with her on visits to schools, the National Principals’ Forum decided to survey principals in all primary schools to ascertain if the Minister’s statement rang true for them. Principals were offered twenty different issues and asked to select the three biggest issues affecting schools. Smartphone use came 16th far behind the top issues of school finance, teacher shortages, an unsustainable workload and increased paperwork.
Minister Foley has sent a memo to cabinet asking for approval that schools will be responsible for delivering on a Smartphone ban in primary schools. Schools are expected to be asked to design and issue a survey to all parents and manage a system where parents would pledge not to buy a smartphone for their child. This extra workload will ironically fall onto the desks of primary school principals.
While principals acknowledge that smartphones are problem outside of schools, almost all agreed that there are far more pressing issues. Stephen Lennane, a principal in Adare, Co. Limerick said, “While I commend the Minister’s interest in the overuse of smartphones, underfunding is by far the biggest that our school is dealing with.”
Despite the recent payment of a one-off cost of living grant made to schools last week, only 10% of the respondents believed it will be enough to pay the bills this academic year. “It just shows how far removed Minister Foley and the Department is from the real issues on the ground,” stated James Battersby, principal of Scoil Naomh Bride, County Meath, just one of several similar quotes collated in the survey.
Teacher shortages also featured highly on the list of issues for principals as was widely reported in the media this week. Neasa Sheahan, Catherine McAuley Reading School, in Dublin 2 said, “Smartphone use is never a topic raised with ministers, schools have been dealing with the impact of inappropriate social media use in schools through our code of behaviour and anti-bullying policies for years. Rather, the absolute crisis of teacher shortage is my main issue.”
Most principals believed that the Minister’s plans are simply populist and serve only to distract from the big issues affecting families in the education system, whether that is class sizes, support for children with additional needs or English language teachers for newly arrived migrant families, none of which have been adequately addressed in the recent budget. Unfortunately, despite committing to address the sustainability of the principal’s workload, the Minister seems eager to continue to increase it through measures that offer headlines in the news but no better educational outcomes for children.
Principals also agreed that significant work has been done over the last number of years by schools in terms of using technology in a meaningful way and keeping children safe online. In fact, according to Seán Gallagher, principal of the Quay National School in Ballina, Co. Mayo, “the Department’s own Digital Strategy and Digital Learning Framework affirms this.”
Rather than meaningless pledges which only increase workload and paperwork for schools, principals suggested better ways for the government to address the issue of smartphone use in society. For example, Conor Mulcahy, principal of St. Joseph’s Girls N.S. Clonakilty Co Cork suggests “clearer, more detailed guidelines on cyber bullying separate to a school’s anti bullying policy would be much more helpful.”