Meeting of the Parliament 01 October 2025 [Draft]
How about that? A Government that is not distracted by manufacturing grievance all day long—that would be quite an improvement on the Government that we have.
I know that there are wider issues—Patrick Harvie went on at length about the wider issues—but we are talking about the learning environment in schools. That is what we are talking about. I had not come across the word “hypervigilance”. I like that. It is a good description of exactly what we are trying to combat.
I make no apology for standing up to argue in favour of order and discipline in our schools, because order and discipline require consequences and sanctions. Without them there is no respect; without respect, there is no learning environment. Those are not optional extras—they are the very foundations of what makes an education system work.
I know that sometimes we have an aversion in the Parliament to looking at evidence, but we must look at the evidence of what has happened elsewhere. In Spain, they talk about gaining the equivalent of up to a year of extra learning in science, and there have been significant improvements in maths. In Norway, a ban has boosted girls’ grades, reduced bullying and lowered stress and anxiety. In North America, for goodness’ sake, the evidence shows calmer lessons, higher levels of engagement in the classroom and improved test scores.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is unequivocal that a smartphone should be used in school
“only when it supports learning”.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has shown that digital distraction costs people months of learning time, with two thirds of teenagers in its surveys admitting that they are distracted in class by phones—sometimes their own, often those of their classmates.
The Scottish Government has highlighted in its own behaviour in Scottish schools research report that the
“abusive use of mobile phones and digital technologies was one of the most ... serious”
disciplinary problems in our classrooms. The same report revealed shocking rises in violence and disruption. Almost 90 per cent of teachers in secondary schools said that pupils were sometimes or frequently off task, and more than half reported serious verbal abuse. Physical violence against teachers has also risen alarmingly.
The conclusion is obvious: mobile phones undermine learning, discipline and the happiness of children and young people, and they undermine the authority of teachers. As a general rule, they should not be seen or used in classrooms, save in the rarest of circumstances, when they directly support learning. However—this is the point, and I am aghast that the cabinet secretary cannot grasp this—teachers and headteachers cannot do this alone. We might say that they have autonomy to do this, which is true, but it is not an easy thing to do. They have to deal with the consequences of their decision to ban mobile phones in their schools. That point has been highlighted by other members. Headteachers are standing up to the everyday disruption, disorder and, often, violence. They are often left feeling—anyone who has spoken to a headteacher must know this—that they are alone in confronting those challenges, because the national direction and guidance are lacking and they are without the back-up from the Parliament that they badly need.