‘Digital pause’: France pilots school mobile phone ban

Right now, pupils in French middle schools must turn off their phones. The experiment takes things further, requiring children to hand in their phones on arrival. — AFP

PARIS: Tens of thousands of pupils in France are going through a slightly different return to school this autumn, deprived of their mobile phones.

At 180 “colleges”, the middle schools French children attend between the ages of 11 and 15, a scheme is being trialled to ban the use of mobile phones during the entire school day.