Handphones in schools

The education department of Malaysia has instructed all schools in the country to allow students to bring handphones to schools. But they have to adhere to the rules regarding the usage of handphones in schools,they can only use them before school,after school and during recess. This has brought critics from all angles,the parents,teachers and headmasters. Their reasons for objecting: 1. The students may be distracted from their study,they may be busy engaing in games and SMS back and fro. 2. The rich kids may show off their expensive sets in front of the poorer ones,hence causing envy. This may lead to theft or damage to others' handphones. Teachers will have to spend unnecessary time to handle these cases. 3. Parents will face difficulties in fullfilling their children's wishes to possess handphones as all their friends are using handphones now. 4. Students can make use of the school's telephones to contact their parents for urgent matters. Point# 1 is quite easy to handle, any student found violating the rules laid down by the Education Department will have his/her phone confiscated as instructed by the Department. Point#2 is slightly complicated but still can be solved. The schools can restrict the models of handphones allowed in the schools,requiring the students to bring only the cheapest yet still functioning handphones. If they want to show off,they may do so outside the schools. Pont# 3 is too personal,I can not offer any suggestion. Point# 4 gives room to a lot of arguments.How do you define "urgent" ? To some students the slightest stress, like the transport is late or forget to bring a book, is a matter of emergency; while to some students, nothing is worth worrying about, unless the sky fell on top of them. In my humble opinion, it is good for the kids to be easily contacted. In case there is some thing suddenly crops up at works and can not come to fetch them home immediately, at least the kids will know. In this case this is an in-coming call, are the teachers willing to go a few blocks just to inform the kids? Say there might be 10-20 such calls everyday? In another scenario, say a kid is supposed to stay back for some extra curriculum activity,so he/she will not follow the "Bas Sekolah" home, instead the parents will pick him/her home after works. But the activity is suddenly cancelled, he/she will have to stay idling in the school for a good 4-5 hours. This is how the students begin to sneak out the schools and hang around the shops where they pick up bad company. I don't want this to happen to my kids! Allowing kids to bring handphones to school is not a bad thing, provided we do it carefully.