Ban on mobile phone usage in SHS: Reduce the negatives and consider the positives – Lecturer

An Educationist and Dean of students at the Methodist University College, Charles Daniel Kojo Opoku has waded into the use of mobile phones by students in Senior High Schools (SHSs).

The issue of whether mobile phones should be used in basic and second-cycle schools in the country stirred controversy at the fifth quadrennial regional delegates conference of the Greater Accra branch of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in Accra on Tuesday.

Delivering the keynote address, an educationist and Founder of Gifted and Talented Education (GATE), Mr Anis Haffar, advocated the use of mobile phones by students, stressing that it was a backward tendency for students to be restricted from using smartphones in a world that was dominated by technology.

The Ghana Education Service and the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools have vehemently opposed this move to allow students in SHSs to use mobile phones citing illegal connections of electricity done by students to charge their phones, especially in the dormitories as several reasons among others.

They noted that allowing the use of mobile phones in SHSs would have dire consequences on students as a result of their distraction and abuse.

For his part, the Executive Director of Dream Alive foundation and lecturer at the Accra Technical University, Daniel Osabutey, also said government needs to put in place enough checks to ensure that the negatives are not detrimental to the students in their pursuit of education.

“I will not go for against and I won’t even go for it, am in the middle but destined that all the negatives and the positives should be brought on board so that we see how best we reduce the negatives and rather push the positives and see whether it will benefit our children when it’s introduce in our SHSs rather than condemning it,” he told Nana Darkwah Gyasi on the Gold Power Drive Friday.