CELL PHONE: IS IT A NECESSITY AT SCHOOL?

  Cell phones , is a mobile telephone or cellular telephone is a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for access to the Internet, and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video. Most current mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base stations (cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) (the exception is satellite phones).

 On this 21th century, cell phone is known as one of the necessity of mankind. Even thought at school, students prefer to carry their mobile phone along. But actually they are violating the school rules by using phone in the classroom. But according to Malaysia schools rule, students are not allow to bring their cell phone to schools. This is because the students cannot discipline themselves of using cell phones. The school principal must spread the notice about how harmful it's to students in the class.
 

  After some surveys, below are some opinions from teacher and principle .

A teacher’s opinions:

  From a teachers point of view, when you ask the question, Should Cell Phones Be Allowed In School, my answer will always be NO.Firstly,student can be easily distracted from their studies and having easy access to a cell phone during class can make it easier for them to lose focus.  If they become bored with the class material,they will access to chat, text, browse the internet and play games, go on Facebook and Twitter during the lesson. How can you expect a student to absorb the knowledge they need to learn if they're not even paying attention? Next,student could cheating during exam by using their cell phone.Obviously student will not allow to take out their cell phones and talk to one another in the classroom during an exam, but the concept of "passing notes" has stepped into the age of technology, thanks to text messaging.Texts can be sent quite discreetly while in the classroom or student can excuse himself to go to the washroom, only to use that time to send text messages and leave voice mails.Taking it one step further, a student could simply Google for answers or use their built in calculators for math questions.Last but not least,case of stealing will happening around the school as the young people can be very competitive,this can cause student involve into stealing especially when another student brings an expensive cell phones to school.Teacher will need to solve this question and might affect the teacher teaching or teacher might also sacrifice the time of teaching to solve these problems.

Principle’s opinions :

  As a principle, I strongly not agree that students bring cell phones to school. A lot of parents always come and complained to school that school should be giving students permission to bring phone to school so that they can easily contact each other while emergency. But,there are reasons why students are not allow to bring cell phones to school.

  At first, if students bring cell phones to school, they cannot concentrate while teacher is teaching in front just because they are checking their messages and maybe they will play games in classroom. This shows irrespective to teacher and this will disturbing the lesson.

  Beside that, cell phone can be used as cheating devices . In addition, there is growing unease about the inappropriate use of mobile phones  and the many functions available on them, such as cameras. This might be so unfair on giving marks for the student who are using phone cameras doing homework and student without using phone cameras doing homework.

  Other than that, case of stealing will increases. For some students who are not affordable to own a cell phone, they will feeling unbalance so they will try to get a cell phone by stealing from their classmate or friends. As a result, these valuables tempt student to resort to extremes such as stealing, because they feel as though their cell phones seem inadequate compared to today’s standard.

   Overall, schools should ban the use of cell phones in school. Cell phones use increases school crime, detracts from learning, and encourages cheating. In general, this technology seems more detrimental than beneficial to students and their education. Therefore, student should not bring their cell phone to school.

   Above are opinions from a teacher and a principle in a school. Is that cell phone a necessity at school? This is a serious question, after some survey and SMS comments, result shows that there are 78% of people do not support students to bring cell phones to school. A lot of citizens believe that there are only cons if students bring cell phones to school.

BY,
Lee Kok Ann
JONATHAN CHAN