Manitoba to provide update on cellphones in school following Saskatchewan’s ban

WINNIPEG — Manitoba, now the only western Canadian province without an overarching cellphone ban in school classrooms, says an update is coming.

“Manitoba’s plan on cellphone use in classrooms will be revealed later this week,” Ryan Stelter, a spokesman for Premier Wab Kinew, said Monday in a statement.

Manitoba became the only western Canadian province that has not introduced plans to restrict cellphones in schools following Saskatchewan’s decision last week to ban the use of the devices in the upcoming school year.

Saskatchewan’s policy applies to all kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms, and followed announcements in Alberta, B.C., Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia.

The bans are designed to reduce distractions and help students focus in class.

Manitoba’s education department says right now it is up to individual school divisions to develop and enforce technology use policies in their schools.

But in a statement, the department said it is talking to stakeholders “to ensure that provincial curriculum and use-of-technology guidelines are updated to be responsive to current technology-use patterns.”

The Opposition Progressive Conservatives have already called for a provincewide ban.

PC education critic Grant Jackson said he has heard from teachers who want policies in place so that they are not left to police these devices on their own in the classroom.

The PCs would like to see a ban in place for kindergarten to Grade 8.

“(Cellphones are) just the way of the world and I’m not saying go back in time. But I am saying that students need to be able to focus,” Jackson said in an interview.

“I don’t think we’re setting our students up for success by allowing eight- and nine-year-olds to police themselves on their device use, and that’s currently what’s going on.”

Some school divisions have already imposed their own cellphone bans, with one taking the restriction of screen time even further.

Manitoba’s francophone schools division is set to restrict computer usage for elementary and middle school students starting this school year. It is directing teachers to limit screen time to no more than an hour a day while in the classroom.

This follows the division’s decision to ban cellphones last year in all of its schools.

“We focus on maintaining literacy on computers so that kids are up to par. But is it the right thing to be five hours in front of a screen all day? We believe not,” said division superintendent Alain Laberge.

Teachers for the francophone division’s 24 schools told administrators it has been challenging to make sure the students are on task each day, said Laberge.

For the most part, Laberge said, staff and parents have been on board with the recent changes. There came some growing pains, such as substitute teachers not familiar with the changes or some students flouting the rules, but those eased with time, he said.

The Hanover School Division in southern Manitoba embarked on a pilot project with one of their schools last year to see if a ban would be effective. The division spoke with principals, the school board and parent councils and found they were in favour of a divisionwide policy change for kindergarten to Grade 8, which is set to begin this school year.

Staff-reported behaviour in the school improved and there were fewer office referrals because of misuse of technology or problems that were occurring online, said Colin Campbell, Hanover’s assistant superintendent.

The division found social media conflict would spill into the classrooms causing a distraction for students and teachers and would cut into instruction and social time.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 12, 2024.

Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press