Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has hit back at a National Party policy to ban cell phones at schools, saying it would be central government overreach.
This morning, National announced the policy, which leader Christopher Luxon said would help lift students' declining achievement levels.
The ban would apply to all schools — primary, intermediate, and secondary — and they could decide how to practically enforce it.
Parents and guardians would be able to contact children via the school office, and cell phones could only be used in class for an educational purpose part of schoolwork.
There would be some exemptions, such as for health or learning challenges reasons.
However, Hipkins said schools already had the ability to ban cell phones and/or their use in schools.
"They don't need Christopher Luxon's permission to do that. Many schools do that already.
"Parents who run school boards of trustees are in the best position to make decisions for their school in terms of what's practically implementable."
He said he "fully supported" schools who did opt for the bans.
"Those decisions are rightly left with school boards of trustees... they can make their own decisions, they don't need central government dictating to them what they should be doing and how they should be doing it."
Earlier, Education Minister Jan Tinetti, a former school principal, said a "Government-ordered national ban" was unnecessary, and showed "a lack of understanding of how schools operate in New Zealand".
Meanwhile, the president of the Secondary Principals' Association and Papatoetoe High School principal Vaughan Couillaut said the plan was unworkable and unnecessary.
"A piece of legislation that bans [phones] won't instantly stop [inappropriate use] overnight, it will create conflict, it will create a legal requirement for us to confiscate rather than to educate and train students on how to use things appropriately."
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