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A campaign launched by Beijing Vocational College of Agriculture required every student to surrender their phones at the start of each class. It is the first of its kind in Beijing that is likely to revive the talks on inappropriate cellphone use in school.
Quality teaching and keeping class order are the aims of the campaign, said the spokesman of the college.
Wang Xuming, former spokesman of the Ministry of Education, is for the cellphone ban. He said that the campaign will help students be independent thinkers by eliminating dependency on cellphones.
Some education experts are not necessarily for the ban nor they are against it. They said that colleges should instead encourage students not to use cellphones, not to ban them permanently.
The "cellphone should not be allowed in school" issue is not new in China. Long River Daily, a Wuhan-based regional newspaper, reported that a high school in Wuhan, Hubei Province, temporarily banned cellphone use while students prepare for the college entrance exam, the all-important gaokao. The high school confiscated and smashed the cellphones of students caught using one. The broken phones were displayed shortly after as warning to other students.
The United States also has the same problem. Prominent colleges acknowledge the convenience of cellphone use for parents and students in terms of communication. However, it remains as another great disruption to students' studies.
The National School Safety and Security Services (NSSSS), a consulting firm in the U.S. that focuses on crisis preparedness, said that the potential danger of cellphones outweigh the advantages.
