New mobile phone ban at schools: Measures for better education from May!

New mobile phone ban at schools: Measures for better education from May!

Wien, Österreich - Austrian education policy faces a comprehensive change. The neos held a press conference on Tuesday to present their four measures to reform the education systems. These reforms should come into force from May 1st and promote the concentration of the students. The introduction of a nationwide Handyverbots are the first and central measure.

The mobile phone ban concerns the first eight school levels, including folk, middle, special schools and AHS sub-stages. The aim is to make schools in places of concentration, performance and security. Education Minister Christoph Return described cell phones and similar devices as "concentration killers". However, schools can make exceptions for mobile phone use for teaching purposes in order to enable students to have a sensible digital education.

implementation and exceptions

Responsibility for the implementation of the ban lies with the schools itself. They decide how to deal with cell phones during the school day. Some schools already had difficulty enforcing existing regulations, which underlines the need for a uniform solution. Special exceptions apply to students with health needs, such as emergency buttons or blood sugar measurement.

Another aspect is the support of family minister Claudia Plakolm, which emphasizes the importance of digital education and media literacy. At the same time, increased risks such as cyber grooming and radicalization were addressed on the Internet. The NEOS also plan initiatives to strengthen digital education in parallel with the ban on cell phones in order to offer the students a comprehensive preparation for the digital world.

orientation classes for integration

In addition to the mobile phone ban, the NEOS decided to introduce Orientation classes for refugee children. These classes are intended to convey standards and basic values ​​and to promote language skills. The first pilot projects of the orientation classes in Vienna and Vorarlberg have already shown positive results, which is a result of multilingual integration.

The third measure of the NEOS is a Initiative in the school To reduce administrative effort by 80 %. In addition, an additional 62 million euros are to be made available for German funding in order to improve the language skills of students. Künsberg Sarre from the Neos also found that despite known problems in the past, no measures have so far been taken to effectively address them.

With these reforms, Austrian education policy sets itself an important goal: promoting a learning -friendly environment, the integration of refugees and the necessary adaptation to the digital future.