Denmark plans to change the law to force schools to ban mobile phones for students. A government commission has also recommended that children under 13 not have their own smartphones or tablets at all.
This is reported by The Guardian.
The new rules in Denmark come as governments across Europe are trying to more strictly regulate childrenʼs access to phones and social media.
The Danish Welfare Commission, established by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in 2023, recently published a report stating that children and young people lack a balance between digital and real life. The report makes 35 recommendations to improve the situation. One of them is to ban smartphones in schools and after-school clubs by law.
Minister for Children and Education Matthias Tesfaye said that “school should be restored as an educational space where there is room for reflection, not as an extension of a teenager’s bedroom”. According to him, smartphones have no place in school — neither during breaks nor during lessons. Local authorities will be able to make exceptions to the ban, in particular for children with special educational needs.
The government is already preparing legislative changes.
- The Netherlands has banned mobile phones in primary and secondary schools. A similar initiative is being implemented in the UK.
- UNESCO estimates that one in four countries has partially or completely banned the use of smartphones in schools, including France, Spain, the Netherlands, and China.
- UNESCO called for a ban on smartphones in schools by 2023. Research shows that excessive screen time negatively impacts childrenʼs academic performance and well-being.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine please follow us on X.