Students shun phone checks

STUDENTS have rejected calls for parents to check pictures on their children’s mobile phones but accept all phones should be banned from the classroom.

In response to demands for tabs to be kept on teenagers’ phones, Union of Secondary Students president, Emer Ní Chuagáin, said mobile phones were people’s personal property.

She said: “It would be counter-productive if parents can’t trust their children. Schools and parents shouldn’t assume all children are using phones for the wrong reasons.”

Ms Ní Chuagáin said students accept the policy within most schools of not allowing phones in class but added they should be permitted to use phones elsewhere on school grounds outside class times.

The National Congress of Catholic Secondary School Parent Associations (CSPA) asked parents to check pictures on children’s phones even if they consider it to be an invasion of privacy.

“Parents have a responsibility to keep children safe from prosecution. If children were talking to, or taking pictures from, people on the street you would feel free to ask about any such communication and the same should apply to their mobile phones,” said spokesperson Barbara Johnston.

She said while the banning of new technology may not be the best way forward, a system could be put in place for students to leave picture-phones with staff in the morning and collect them after school.

Three Dublin students were suspended from second-level schools last year for sending pornographic images from their phones.

The Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA), representing management of 250 vocational schools and community colleges, wants the Government to ensure all mobile phone purchases are registered.

“The potential uses of camera phones are a new and dangerous form of bullying. Female students and teachers are very concerned, given the way images can easily be altered,” said IVEA general secretary, Michael Moriarty.