Parents Hail Mobile Phone Ban For Under-16 In Schools

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Nov, 2019 ) :The parents, who are imparting education to their children in Punjab, have welcomed government's initiative to ban usage of cellular phone for students of under-6 in all public and private institutions, saying it must be implemented across the country.

The parents terming the initiative a "rational move" said it would protect their children from a number of social vices and help them attain better academic results.

The Punjab government has banned mobile phone and other gadgets of social networking at all private educational institutions on 8th November to control the drug trafficking, commended by parents while talking to a private news channel on Monday.

A senior educationist Arooma Baloch, who is mother of two school going kids, welcomed the decision and said a recent fake media report that claimed majority of students were addicts have badly affected the educational institutions reputation and this initiative would limit the chances of students getting into bad activities and help them focus on studies.

"The government would not have passed this ordinance in just the blink of an eye rather it had taken more than a year and half to monitor all the pros and cons of the social nuisance as a large number of youth was getting addicted to ice and drugs," another lecturer of History at Punjab University remarked.

Drug dealers usually tried to trap school and college going students as they were innocent and could transport the drug to other peers as well and mobile phone could make it easy for the drug peddlers to access their prey, he further said.

This was also appreciable that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority did not allow SIM card to a person under 18 years of age, he mentioned.

" We provided a smart phone to our son who is in his early teens a few month ago at his insistence as his all friends use expensive mobile sets," said a mother Samina Khan. It was also incurring daily financial burden over lower middle class families, she remarked while encouraging the step.

She further said mobile phone had prevailed the culture of snobbery among youth and it had become a status symbol as children wanted to appear more cooler and smarter than others.

Dr. Sadia Hassan a psychatrist from Peshawar suggested that parents should cut down their personal activities to spend time with children and provide quality time of two to three hours to their siblings daily. "It was a need of the hour that civil social activists should come forward to teach parenting rules to parents and to make them exhibit their responsibilities.

Media's role was more vital to aware the masses regarding the positive usage of new gadgets and technology, she stated.

Media could highlight the importance of good healthy activities like reading books and forcing youth to get involved in sports.