Sunday News
By Vusumuzi Dube
9 October 2011
A cellphone is a gadget that was originally designed to make communication easier and more efficient but like all inventions made for the good of mankind, it can be abused.
In recent media reports, school children have been reported to be largely taking advantage of this gadget not only to do research, which is good, but also to record pornographic or abusive material that they go on to distribute among themselves.
A recent case of the nude pictures of students from Ihlathi High School made the headlines of our sister paper, B-Metro.
There was also a video of Milton High School students seemingly bullying a fellow student, not to mention the very recent video of teenagers from two of Bulawayo’s “elite†schools engaging in sexual intercourse.
All these vices capture a generation that has become more reliant on the cellphone for their day-to-day operation, this ranging from simple communication, to research right up to entertainment.
Gone are the days when a mobile phone used to be a symbol of wealth and prosperity, when children were the last people expected to have the gadget.
Nowadays it has become a common feature among every child, with almost everyone possessing the once hard-to-get gadget; at school it has now become a common to see school children competing with their teachers in terms of who possesses the best phone.
School children have now been introduced to the famed search engines such as wikipedia.com and google.com, to an extent that even during lessons you find them “googling†their assignments.
However, parents and educationalists have raised concern over the issue of children being allowed to have their mobile phones during lessons, with the main bone of contention being the fact that these children end up abusing the facility by viewing x-rated sites while in some cases they are said to be using the gadget right in the middle of lessons this thereby inhibiting the learning process.
However, as this argument lingers on the question is who really is to blame; the parents who purchase the cellphones for their children, the educationists who allow children to have these during learning hours or the children themselves who abuse a gadget that is meant for their own good.
Now, in this rapidly expanding market, some major networks are about to adopt a range of “kiddie phones†designed for children as young as four, with claims that its handsets are safer and smarter. But does this worsen or improve the education system?
On top of all this are the health effects of the cellphone. According to Britain’s newspaper, The Sunday Times, a study by researchers at Orebro University Hospital in Sweden last year indicated that children may be five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use mobile phones.
Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, a leading Australian psychologist, described parents who allow young children to use mobile phones as “insaneâ€.
Dr Carr-Gregg, a University of Melbourne professor of paediatrics, is worried about the power of mobile phones to distract and overexcite.
According to a survey conducted by Dr Carr-Gregg, 40 percent of children with mobile phones are sleep deprived on school nights, as peer pressure has made it normal for children of 6 and 7 to stay up until the early hours texting friends.
His evidence, revealed in a series of Australian academic seminars, suggests that millions of children are allowed mobile phones in their bedrooms, creating a generation of overtired “zombiesâ€.
Other new research has linked deprivation in children with hyperactivity symptoms and hormone imbalances that increase the risk of obesity and diabetes.
However despite all this hype on the effects of a child’s learning implications, cellphone companies have used children and teens as a huge demographic for mobile phone makers and providers.
Mobile phones have become accessories that rival the status of designer clothing.
With each year, the pressure increases for parents to meet their teen’s demands, but at the end of the day the priority of cellphone makers and providers is to cash in on a huge market.
Although they are highly useful and increase one’s efficiency at work, the many demerits of the cellular phone are now taking the limelight.
The hot topic of the day is the use of these cellphones in educational institutions. Many educators find it a nuisance to find students in their classroom possessing mobile phones. Educational institutions also have started prohibiting the use of these phones within their campuses. However, as every coin has two sides, even cellphones have their own merits and demerits.
Contacted for comment, Education, Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Senator David Coltart said while there was no set policy inhibiting school children from bringing cellphones to school, school heads had the jurisdiction of banning them if they felt they were disturbing the learning process.
“Currently there is no policy nationally that says students should not bring their cellphones to school, it is however entirely up to the heads to decide if they can allow cellphones or not.
“They can also only intervene if there is a particular incident where students might be disturbing others in class and the cellphones can be taken only as a disciplinary measure,†said Minister Coltart.
The minister said what was key was that these mobile phones do not interfere with the learning curriculum of the student as this was the primary mandate of any education system.
“What we have to appreciate is that a cellphone is a communication device, but over and above everything we should be responsible enough by ensuring that they do not interfere with the primary goal of education,†he said.
Veteran educationist and Zanu-PF secretary for education, Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, said whole it was acceptable that we are living in a global village, it should be appreciated that allowing school children to freely use their mobile phones during lessons disturbed teachers from executing their mandate of teaching.
“As parents we should at least give our children the opportunity to learn thus these mobile phones should not be allowed within school premises as at the end of the day the children end up concentrating on playing with their phones rather than the learning process.
“While I fully agree that a cellphone helps in the basic communication process, our children are no longer using them for this function but use them for self-aggrandisement and other immoral activities which inhibit negatively on the whole education process,†said Dr Ndlovu.
He said that it was well known that communication technology also played a role in the developing of a child especially with the rising technological era.
“I am not saying deprive the children of the gadgets completely because whether we like it nor not they have a huge impact on the growth of the child, we don’t want to produce a generation that is technophobic considering that nowadays you find a five year old freely using the computer or anf of these technological gadgets.
“What I am simply saying is that let’s not interfere with teaching curriculum because we end up depriving our children of a fundamental right, this being of education,†said Dr Ndlovu.
Former vice chancellor of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Professor Phinias Makhurane echoed Dr Ndlovu’s sentiments, saying while it was appreciable that times were fast changing this was not to be used as an excuse to cripple the education system.
“It is a common rule that cellphones must be switched off during lessons so that the teacher is not disturbed, school heads must play a lead role in this aspect.
“Yes, it is good to have cellphones in terms of communication, but they should not disturb the whole education system,†sad Prof Makhurane.
He said it had to be appreciated that at the end of the day mobile phones had their advantages like they gave students the opportunity to research their assignments and further improve their knowledge base.
So as the argument lingers on who’s to blame on these mobile phones finding their way into the classroom, one thing for certain is that after noting the importance of these communication devices the students themselves should be responsible and ensure that they don’t abuse them and use them during lessons, which goes on to affect the education process.