Garcia out of focus on camera phones

THE use of cellphones in schools has returned to the front burner following yet another controversial videotaped incident at a secondary school.

The incident, which was dismissed by the principal of Fatima College as boys at his school "playing the fool", has led Education Minister Anthony Garcia to call on officials to enforce the ban on camera phones in schools.

While the ban is likely to be enforced for a few days, it is even more likely to collapse for the very same reason that rendered it ineffective in the first place. Keeping camera phones out of schools requires a mechanism within the school system for ongoing monitoring and policing along with pupil and parental awareness and co-operation.

If most of our schools don't even have guidance counsellors to help children with emotional and psychological issues, they could hardly be expected to provide the monitoring and policing needed for keeping video cameras off their compounds. Camera phones are a fact of modern life, not only for pupils but for parents, teachers, other staff and principals alike. They open up users to the world of internet connectivity, providing access to a bounty of information, good, bad and indifferent.

It would be surprising if the vast majority of pupils use their devices for anything dangerous or criminal, although it is the sensational that invariably grab our attention through social media. More often, people, including teenagers, use their camera phones for information, communication and entertainment. They surf the net, keep in touch, connect with their various networks, conduct research, copy files and check information on almost everything.

The camera phone is a real asset in everyday life. It is the distortion of its uses that is the problem that modern society needs to confront. In doing so, the most potent, sustainable and enlightened response could only come from education. After all these years, one would have thought that internet providers and educators would have developed a collaboration aimed at instilling safe and healthy values in our children regarding the use of internet-based technology, including camera phones.

Judging from the public behaviour and comment in response to sensational video posts, it is clear that many people, including adults, have an unhealthy relationship with video posts and social media. While it may already be too late for most adults, it is not too late to shape the relationship between children and internet technology to ensure they are aware of its strengths and dangers and know how to protect themselves.

The education system cannot be interested only in how children use camera phones in school but how they use them generally, whether in school or out. While banning might protect schools and their administrations from public embarrassment, it does nothing to teach children about one of the most powerful learning tools now available to them.

By emphasising the ban on camera phones in schools, Education Minister Garcia is focusing on the wrong problem.

The issue is not the mere publicising of problems in our schools but the problems themselves.

Source: Garcia out of focus on camera phones