Greek students enter class without phones

The new regulations were announced following a meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Education Minister Kyriakos Pierakakis.

“Students can bring their cell phones to school, but they must keep them in their bags throughout the school day,” Mitsotakis said at the announcement of the “Cell Phone in the School Bag” campaign.

Under the new rules, students who do not follow them will be suspended for one day. In the case of repeated violations, teachers have the right to suspend students from classes for several days. And anyone who photographs their classmates or teachers without permission can be expelled from school.

“We do not necessarily expect 100% compliance with the rules from the first day, but we want children, their parents and teachers to understand how important it is for students to be fully focused on the educational process at school,” Mitsotakis said, quoted by Euronews.

These provisions are a continuation of new rules announced by Pierakakis in March, under which students face expulsion for taking photos of classmates and making fun of them online.

However, for the first time, Greece is introducing a broad system of penalties to combat the use of mobile phones at school, which officials call a “significant distraction”.

There was previously a blanket ban on mobile phone use in schools dating back to 2002, but teachers said it was difficult to enforce.
A spokesman for the secondary school teachers' union OLME said on Greek radio that it was important to work to convince students to turn off their phones, not just to threaten them with punishment.

These regulations come a week after mobile phones were banned in 373 schools in Belgium's predominantly French-speaking Wallonia region.