‘Ban phone usage in schools’ - Managing Editor

Managing Editor of the Young Advocate children’s newspaper, a local newspaper in Takoradi, Western Region, has thrown his weight behind the position of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) on calls for students to be allowed to use smart phones in school to enhance academic work.

It would be recalled that the GNAT led by its general secretary opposed calls for students to be allowed to use smart phones in school to enhance academic work during the 5th Quadrennial Delegates Conference of the Greater Accra branch of GNAT.

According to him, smart phones are necessary evil which can be a good servant but can be a bad master too hence not to permit students to use them, especially now that moral decadence, was on the ascendancy in the country among the youth.

He, therefore, urged the schools and the government to resource the libraries and the ICT labs with the requisite and current tools to aid research work by the students to guard them against the temptations of the social media.

This, according to him, will help students focus more on their studies instead of spending most of their time playing games and engaging in activities on social media that were counterproductive to their academic work.

Rev Danquah, who is also a Life Performing Coach, noted that smart phones had proven to be an essential tool for learning, however, with the upsurge in the use of social media by the youth to communicate and entertain themselves.

He mentioned other challenges associated with the usage as encouraging stealing and creating unnecessary peer pressure for students, in particular, those from poor homes, whose parents or guardians cannot afford to provide them with smartphones.

He lamented that the collapse of moral fibre of society in recent times must be a concern to all as it poses a threat to the future and development of the country, adding, that “any system bereft of morality is bound to crumble and fall.”