Panel proposes restricting cell phone use by schoolchildren

Tuesday 27th May, 06:16 AM JST

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Fair dinkum! at 10:08 AM JST - 27th May

Cell phones are a fact of life and here to stay and are as much a part of children's culture as ampanman and manga, regardless of your views. Giving children limited access to the internet is a great idea. The software is in use at present and only needs to be adapted for phones. Stopping children using their phones is a breech of their rights. However, use in the classroom must be stopped. I know of a school that collects student's phones every morning and returns them in the afternoon. This does stop most cases of the students using phones during school hours, but many students have two phones. As a parent it is essential for kids to have mobile phones. The GPS location system is great if it can only be accessed by the parents, but I don't want any stranger to be able to locate my kids. Instead of introducing English to elementary school kids, a course in mobile phone etiquette might be more appropriate. If the proposed English course is run in line with the standard Japanese curriculum it will only achieve giving more foreigners more low paid jobs. They won't learn any English.
didou at 10:15 AM JST - 27th May

Kids do not need cell phones. They will get addicted to it and sad or depressed whithout no phone, like most of adults
PuffinMuffin at 10:23 AM JST - 27th May

harmful info? With their hightech, couldn't they introduce filters, like on the internet? Ah right, this doesn't work. But how about in the case of emergencies? Create cellphones for emergencies only, how about that? Not just for children.
Fair dinkum! at 10:28 AM JST - 27th May

didou wrote>Kids do not need cell phones

You don't have kids, do you?
DeepAir65 at 11:08 AM JST - 27th May

How on earth are they going to restrict usage? I understand and support it in principal but how can they stop a kid with a phone surfing or emailing?

Anyone caught using a phone in class should have detention or whatever they do these days. Anyone caught in an exam should be ejected - end of story.
cwhite at 11:34 AM JST - 27th May

wrong tactic, ban anything and your asking for trouble. Just teach kids netiquette since they will have to learn to live with high-tech gadgets for a long time to come. Personally I would start young and your most likely to get bored with using a crappy mobile what you can do on a PC some 50 times faster. As for the dating sites and similar just ban them from mobiles altogether. On the other side how about only English mobiles with English websites, that would force J-kids to learn English mighty quick.
capone at 01:07 PM JST - 27th May

who's gonna teach phone etiquette to kids...the parents ? they're worse
timorborder at 01:40 PM JST - 27th May

This is a two-edged sword, on one hand, I agree with the idea of access being restricted to certain websites etc. On the other hand, however, security at Japanese schools still leads a lot to be desired. Furthermore, whether or not children use mobile phones is a decision for parents, not schools.
noborito at 03:36 PM JST - 27th May

Its not the content on the net, its what people do with it. kids will find ways to find out about sex and anything else they want too. how about simply teaching them. and let the parents have the responsiblty. sad thing is, if anything goes wrong the parents blame the schools. I school I know, recently just had a case last week about one child took naked photos of another child and posted them on the net. it was fun and games. but it was huge with one child being kicked out of class, and the other staying home for long period of time. Who had the meeting, the school. with the parents yelling at the teachers. this is what my japanese friend said. anyway, cell phones are here to stay. get real no one is going to give them up. lets let parents teach or restrict this machine. just like their home computer.
Blue_Tiger at 08:09 PM JST - 27th May

If I ever have the blessing of children, they will not have a cell-phone until they are at least 16.
gifu at 09:17 PM JST - 27th May

Whew, do these bureaucrats have any connection with kids and education at all?

(1) Stop kids having mobiles-- ok, just allow them to have the same phones for old geezers, that allow them to make emergency calls or call home (2 buttons only, no dial).

(2) Ban email on mobiles? That will do wonders for the economy. That's like banning alcohol for all because some teenagers overindulge.

(3) More English? Great, but who is going to teach? Few teachers speak the language even if they have degrees in it.

We're lucky no one ever acts on these reports....
DenshaDeGO at 10:56 PM JST - 27th May

I've heard the excuse "cell phones let parents keep in touch with their kids" a million times. It's been proven B.S. time and time again. Kids don't need cell phones. All they do is play games and gossip via email on them.
KitsuneYoukai at 11:53 PM JST - 27th May

About time...the degree with which children are losing not only their memorization skills but their ability to compose proper sentences is most certainly hindered by the overuse of cell phone and texting. Not to mention the distraction in class. I had this girl in a geology entry course I was teaching yell at me for reminding her that she needed to shut her cell phone off while in class (something that was on the course guidelines). I told her the next time it went off I would ask her to leave.
borscht at 06:45 AM JST - 28th May

textbooks in China and South Korea employ more than twice the vocabulary used in textbooks in Japan.

Students in these two countries are more motivated to learn English than their Japanese brothers and sisters.

I've interviewed some Chinese students and found on the whole that their teachers are bilingual in Chinese and English and teach nearly always in English (with Chinese used to explain arcane grammar points.). Also, several Chinese students said they studied grammar on their own because the teachers were more interested in their (students) pronunciation and fluency (natural speed and flow of conversation).

Increasing the number of words disinterested students need to memorize is not going to improve anyone's English. But thanks for the job!
DoctorTofu at 05:53 PM JST - 28th May

Eh, I'm not surprised - banning stuff seems to be the favorite pastime of people in power - in any country, Japan is not special in this regard.

God forbid forcing parents to do that awful, bothersome thing, what was it called? Ah yes, parenting. Who has time and resources to raise children - governments, schools and juku should do that - that's what we pay them for, right? Let's ban everything and only then will our precious youth (of whatever age they are now, can't be bother to remember such minor details) be safe...