The head of a Chinese middle school has hammered home the point that education comes first by urging his pupils to smash their mobile phones.
Not all the children looked entirely pleased. One boy gave the phone a hesitant tap before being encouraged to put his back into it. A girl appeared reluctant to step forward at all.
The video of the pupils at the school in Xinyang, central China, went viral on the nation’s social media channels yesterday, renewing a debate about how to tame the excessive use of phones that threatens to distract children from academic pursuits. Phones are strictly banned in classrooms across China as part of efforts to protect pupils’ eyesight, improve concentration and prevent internet addiction, but there is no concensus on how to handle the problem at home. A study last year by Lian Zheng, a political adviser on prevention of juvenile crimes, reported that 98.1 per cent of minors had access to the internet. Those aged 12 to 16 were the most likely to get addicted to the web, with more than a quarter of them deemed to have an online gaming addiction.
At the school in Xinyang many parents were said to have complained to the head that they were unable to stop their teenagers’ excessive phone use at home, making them increasingly fearful about the high school entrance exams in June, which are always highly competitive.
The head responded with the public display of phone smashing, telling state media that parents and students had agreed to the stunt.
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Some online viewers, however, were sceptical. “The fault does not lie with the phone but those who have failed to guide their children to use the phone properly,” one commentater said.
