„We don't just have to limit phones in school, we have to shout at parents to hide their phones at home, and the louder we have to say it, the younger the children are“.
This was stated by the Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev in the relevant parliamentary committee, BTV reports.
Minister Valchev's words were in response to a question by Desita Petkova from GERB-SDF regarding the attitude of the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) regarding the introduction of bans on mobile phones in schools and whether a change is planned in the system for imposing sanctions on students.
The Minister of Education noted that these are two issues that concern the Preschool and School Education Act education.
„We intend to propose such changes by April 30. I hope we will be able to fit into this ambitious deadline. It is not so difficult to prepare the changes as to discuss them“, he said and pointed out that each change requires significant discussion.
Valchev emphasized that to date there is enough research showing that prolonged interaction with screens leads to a strong negative impact on the development of children.
„The development of cognitive skills, communication skills, motor skills suffers, it leads to addiction, the ability to concentrate suffers, the so-called cognitive intolerance develops – something that we can see in ourselves, and many experts say that concentration is the skill of the 21st century, and that is why math results suffer“, he added, adding that it has been proven that devices have a negative impact in early childhood on the formation of the brain and cerebral cortex.
The Minister of Education drew attention to the fact that on the other hand, children primarily develop skills as digital users, and the future will require digital creators.
“The paradox here is that if we want to prepare children for the era of even greater digital transformations, we must hide the devices from them“, he said.
The Minister of Education gave an example of how even now we can see preschool children who are left by their parents to stare at their phones or tablets, and this leads to a negative impact on their development.
“We need to find "a way to tell all parents, because more or less this harms the children," he is categorical.
According to him, if children do not use mobile phones during recess, they will concentrate for the next class, they will have time to move around a bit, to go outside.
„There is even an observation that some children literally forget to go to the toilet because they are in a hurry to grab the phone and see what they missed while they were in class“, added Valchev.
It is a fact, he emphasized, that a large part of teachers refrain from imposing sanctions.
„The fact is that we have stumbled towards a concept in which we only have to support the children, but we have no right to punish them, so as not to harm them. On the other hand, we are harming the right to education of all the other children in the classroom when the teacher cannot impose discipline, so we have to find the balance of children's rights," he said, adding that "Discipline" is a legal issue.
The problem with sanctions is that they are an administrative procedure and there are parents who appeal them, while the assessment is unappealable and has much more positive than just negative elements.