If there’s one thing that teachers and students can all agree on, it’s that phones in the classroom are a distraction.
“Once you get a notification, your focus switches completely from what you’re supposed to be learning,” says Evan Conroy (18), a sixth-year pupil at St Joseph’s, Fairview, north Dublin. “You’re worried more about what the notification says on your phone than learning.”
Jean-Marie Ward, deputy principal of Malahide Community College, agrees that phones can negatively impact the learning environment. “There’s not a school in the country that would say otherwise,” she says.
And yet, the announcement in Budget 2025 that €9 million is to be provided to fund efforts to keep students off their phones during the school day – specifically, the provision of secure pouches to store the devices in – has been met with controversy.
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Some schools in Ireland have already rolled out the use of such pouches.
Critics of the Government’s decision to invest millions in the system that locks away phones say that the money could be better spent elsewhere.
David Waters, president of the Teacher’s Union of Ireland, described the announcement as “frustrating in the extreme”. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald wrote to Taoiseach Simon Harris this week insisting on the “immediate withdrawal” of the decision.
Jackie Dempsey, principal of Loreto on the Green in Dublin’s city centre, said that the investment was an “obscene waste of money”.
St Joseph’s Fairview already has a “robust” phone policy, according to principal Ciara McDonnell. “We currently have a number of different initiatives running, like phone-free Friday – that’s [when] both staff and students leave phones at home or off their person.”
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Such initiatives have had various positive impacts on the learning environment at St Joseph’s.
Even with established phone policies, staff at St Joseph’s are supportive of the Government’s plans for phone pouches – while also acknowledging that a national rollout might suffer some teething problems.
“We’d really welcome this,” says Alexandra Duane, deputy principal at St Joseph’s. “I think it’s been acknowledged that [phone use] is an issue, and now they’re going to try and do something about it.”
At Alexandra College, in Milltown, south Dublin, smartphone pouches have instigated a “different culture” since introduction in September 2023, says principal Barbara Ennis.
“I don’t think it’s money badly spent. I think it’s generally good for the mental health of young people,” she says.
Ms Ward, at Malahide Community College, is similarly positive about the impact the pouches have had at their school since introducing them in January. Student welfare – giving students a break from their phones – was part of the school’s reasoning for introducing the pouches, and pupils have bought into the initiative, she says.
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Allowing schools the autonomy to choose how to use funding might be a better approach, Ms Ward adds.
Students at St Joseph’s are unsure about the pouches – it’s a lot of money, money that could be spent on music or sport equipment or new technology.
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