South Australia says school phone ban decreased violent incidents
While students are still enjoying the holidays South Australia's Education Department says there's been a decrease in violent incidents in schools. The state government says the figures are due to the newly introduced mobile phone ban but experts aren't convinced.
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00:00 Remmark's Anja Tassios is preparing to start Year 11 in the state's Riverland this year.
00:09 Her school banned phones before it was implemented across SA midway through last year.
00:14 It's wonderful.
00:15 I mean you get to socialise more with people even if you don't have an option but to socialise.
00:20 The first lot of data suggests that it has been a real success so far, seeing a reduction
00:25 as much as close to 30% in some cases of violent incidents between students.
00:31 While Anja agrees it's been beneficial during school, bullying has still been an issue after
00:36 hours.
00:37 That's the time for people to gossip and talk and that can reflect on school behaviour whether
00:43 phones are being used there or not.
00:46 Experts say it's too early to tell if the phone ban has reduced violence and more research
00:52 is needed.
00:53 If it was actually true that the mobile phone ban is decreasing kids hitting and punching
01:02 in schools, that's fantastic.
01:05 However I don't think that we can say that just yet.
01:09 Scrolling towards a safer school year.
01:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]