France To Ban Mobile Phones In Schools (theguardian.com)

The French government is planning to ban students from using mobile phones in the country's primary, junior and middle schools. While children will be permitted to bring their phones to school, they will not be allowed to get them out at any time until they leave, even during breaks. The Guardian reports: Jean-Michel Blanquer, the French education minister, said the measure would come into effect from the start of the next school year in September 2018. It will apply to all pupils from the time they start school at age of six -- up to about 15 when they start secondary school. Blanquer said some education establishments already prohibited pupils from using their mobiles. "Sometimes you need a mobile for teaching reasons [...] for urgent situations, but their use has to be somehow controlled," he told RTL radio. The minister said the ban was also a "public health message to families," adding: "It's good that children are not too often, or even at all, in front of a screen before the age of seven." The French headteachers' union was skeptical that the ban could be enforced.

Comments

French lunches versus US lunches

[sjbe]

I predict that French schools will have a serious lack of empty toilets in the foreseeable future. And for a change, it's not because of the quality of the cafeteria lunch.

I think you may not be aware of how amazingly good the food is in French schools. Unlike in the US where we literally give prisoners better food than students which is just mind blowing.