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Swedish government wants to ban mobile phones in classrooms

Should there be a blanket ban on mobile phones in classrooms? That’s what the Swedish government would like to see, according to a new bill by the education ministry.

Published: 18 February 2022 12:22 CET

Swedish government wants to ban mobile phones in classrooms

Sweden's Schools Minister Lina Axelsson Kihlblom. Photo: Lars Schröder/TT

“There should be order in each and every classroom,” Schools Minister Lina Axelsson Kihlbom told a press conference as she presented the new proposal on Friday morning.

The bill would ban the use of mobile phones during lessons, unless the teacher specifically instructs the students to use them for learning purposes.

Today, teachers do not have the right to pre-emptively make students give up their mobile phones unless they are actively being used in a way that disrupts teaching.

Many schools in Sweden, however, have policies in place where students are able to voluntarily hand over their mobile phone when they enter the classroom.

“Teachers shouldn’t spend their time debating whether or not a mobile phone should be put to the side,” said Axelsson Kihlbom.

The government also wants the law to make it clearer that teachers may physically intervene if, for example, a disruptive student refuses to leave the classroom.

The bill follows a series of other bids to revamp Swedish education. The government also recently proposed that municipalities should be able to cut free school funding, and that free schools should not be able to use queue time as a selection criteria.

According to the TT news agency, it is unclear whether there’s enough support in parliament for the latter two proposals, but Friday’s bill may get the backing it needs. If approved, it would come into force on August 1st.

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'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast.

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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