Regular callers of Radio Emmanuel during the South Sudan We Want-Our School program over the weekend condemned the idea of some learners using mobile phones in schools.
Joseph Taban from Hai Kuku says phones will draw the attention of learners from teachers since they will only focus on chatting with friends over social media.
“It is not good for a child to go to school because if he/she has a phone, all the attention will be on the phone to chat with friends and the child will not pay attention to the teacher. All the time they will only wait for break time so that they go and chat on the phone, it is not good for them to go to school. If we say to search from internet there is no need for teachers in the school, those people supporting such idea are wrong, because they are to use the text books and they are taught with it”, he criticizes.
Benson from Hai Matara says many learners who carry phones to schools are always hooked on watching movies and dancing during break times.
“It is not bad to have a phone but what matters is what you use the phone for and how you use the phone is what matters here. But you find that in most cases when you move all the secondary schools even primary school, you find some children, you may even wonder how comes that these children who are supposed to participate in education all the time communicating, watching movies especially during the break time even in classes when the teacher is not there you find they are watching movies which cannot help”, he expresses.
Another caller, Dubanata from Hiyala calls upon teachers to always keep on checking girls and boys in school because the use of telephones by learners is the major cause of early pregnancy.
The use of phones is becoming a problem and it is mostly leading to early pregnancy, you will find someone dropping from three senior teachers. You may think she is going to school but going somewhere else. What I would like to say, head teachers and all the teachers should open their eyes more especially girls even boys when they are found with phones they should call parents then they have to question the father if it is the father who bought the phone”, she says.
Another caller who identified himself as K.Y Khartoum Bilel says the telephones the pupils and students are using are not program for education but only for funs.
“Here in Torit not supposed to be, it is not allowed because the type of telephones which they are using is a telephone which is not programmed. In some countries there are telephones program one only for education, but these ones here are just for funs, you find them going putting on earphones and dancing, watching movies, and playing games”, he explains.
Some schools during the Covid-19 lockdown have been sharing lessons to their learners through phones.