Why is it necessary to have a decree prohibiting mobile phones in all schools?

Because the data show that schools without mobiles allow better fields of study for attention, security and cyberbullying, and without general regulations, the fact that different schools have different regulations means that the possibility of maintaining attention capacity or suffering cyberbullying is different depending on the school, which is not fair. In addition, the most vulnerable are usually the most affected, because the highest consumption of mobile is usually done in the context of families with fewer resources and knowledge, so they are the ones who most need to make schools a point of breathing without mobile. We know that the issue of mobile phones is not limited to school, we families do not renounce our responsibility, but we want the school not to feed the problem, but to be the solution.

Instead, the Department of Education has left the decision at the expense of each school.

And how the school decided, if something goes wrong, it's the school's fault. That's the play. Nowhere else has this been done: In France, in the Netherlands, in Italy, in all the Spanish communities... they have issued the decree that we demand. In fact, if we rely on scientific evidence, it is not justified to allow mobile phones in schools. In Murcia, for example, the study carried out a year after its implementation by decree shows a 73% decrease in cyberbullying in the school; in Galicia, improvements in academic performance are observed after the implementation of the decree (10 points more in mathematics, 12 in sciences). We’re always justified on why to leave mobiles out, but if the question was the other way around, why include mobiles in school, there’s no evidence that mobiles have improved the education system, the opposite of juxtaposition.

The Department of Education launched a process for each school to decide what to do with mobiles. According to the Minister of Education, Begoña Pedrosa, most schools have decided to ban mobile phones.

We see a lack of transparency in the data provided, or at least we believe that the data has not been properly expressed. They say that 85% of schools in Primary have banned mobile phones, since there is usually no mobile phone in Primary, and 50% in ESO have banned it, but the criteria have not been explained: is the ban that no mobile can enter the school? Take it but don't use it? Only for pedagogical use?... How should we understand this 50% that has not been banned in the ESO: free mobile in the school? Do they have limitations of use (in the courtyard, for example)? Are they for educational use only?... The decree, for example, would help to set some criteria.

What does the Department of Education argue to prevent the decree from being issued?

It argues that a top-down measure would have no effect. On the one hand, the Department of Education seems to be recognizing that its decisions are not affected, and on the other hand, it is a rather selective argument, as it takes many other top-down measures.

The need to move from bottom to top, according to the families, can be a very salutary argument, but it is precisely those in the most vulnerable and socio-economically difficult context that are most in need of institutional support, and these, as I mentioned earlier, are the ones that most in need of the measure. In addition, this bottom-up path, this process of raising awareness of professionals and families from school to school, has already been carried out theoretically, by order of the Department of Education. So, once the awareness process has been carried out, what hinders the extraction of the decree?

Is the Department of Education lacking a critical approach to the use of technology?

Oh, yeah, yeah. In Cabecera we are in favor of the digitization of schools, but a healthy, free (with free software) and evidence-based digitization. We are not against technology, we are in favour of healthy development, to which the use of technology must also be adapted. From a health point of view, for example, both Osakidetza and the Spanish State Association of Pediatrics have made the proposal: Children aged 0-6 years do not have screens at school, with a maximum of one hour per day in Primary Education and a maximum of two hours per day in ESO. These are health criteria, but we should be even stricter in education, because in addition to guaranteeing that the mobile phone does not harm, it must bring added value to the learning process.

We’ve been told by the administration that they can’t go against technology. No one is against technology, but there is one technology at our service and another that wants us at its service, dependent on them. There are even a lot of tech experts in Viva Cabeza, and it is precisely because we know the technology well that we have a critical view of it.

The Basque Government has invested a lot in the digitization process that responds to a specific model. Can the fact that we don't ban the phone have anything to do with it? Can you be concerned that the anti-digitalisation trend in the schools that are doing so will gain momentum?

Maybe it is. Our concern is the technological determinism that the Minister of Education has shown many times: it must be introduced yes or yes, and in an uncritical way. Technology has to be used in a very critical way. Why does a multinational leave all its products at the service of a “free” educational system? Such considerations are necessary.

It is necessary to cultivate digital skills in school, yes, but it is different to teach the rest of the subjects digitally, because memory, attention, understanding, abstract thinking... are better cultivated analogically.

The issue is again on the table in Parliament's Education Committee. Do you see the possibility of extracting the decree?

Our hope is that they will put political differences aside and put the needs and well-being of students at the center. Also last December, the President of the Uprising visited Parliament, presenting 20,000 signatures to demand the decree, and from the PNV we received a closed position, with no intention of listening. On this occasion, however, we have noticed a change of tone, the spokesperson of the PNV has admitted that things have not been done well, and although they are obsessed with not accepting the decree that we see them, they are realizing that the decisions they have made in the last decade have not been the most appropriate, they now have a great melon with the theme of mobiles.

Raise your head. It's turned into a powerful wave.

We are more than a hundred teams in the Basque Country and we are expanding. It is nice to see, for example, that beyond the parents’ associations the schools themselves are joining our project, whether it is a public school, a school or a Christian school.

We have four objectives: to delay the age at which children are mobile, to educate and accompany adolescents once they donate their mobile phone, to make schools a breathing space without mobile phones, and to promote healthy, free and evidence-based digitalization.

If you want to join us, you can contact us by email: altxaburuaaraba@gmail.com, altxaburuabizkaia@gmail.com, gipuzkoa@altxaburua.eus and adolescencialibredemovilesna@gmail.com.