From 2 September, all schools in NIS (Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools) have introduced a ban on the use of phones and other gadgets during the school day.
According to the Telegram channel ‘ZTB NEWS’, pupils have their phones confiscated in the morning, and they are returned in a single room after lessons. As a result, at 15:45, when classes finish for all year groups at the same time, students queue up in a huge line for their smartphones.
‘Sometimes you have to wait half an hour or longer. Crowds, crushing, and not a single opportunity to contact parents all day – that is what their new school reality looks like,’ the message states.
It is reported that to compensate for the restrictions, the school administration has purchased new laptops for completing academic tasks.
‘Thus, a problem is artificially created first, and then it is solved using budget funds, which is not reasonable given the state budget deficit,’ one parent noted.
According to available information, the new rules apply in all NIS schools.
The question arises: could the formation of queues and additional budget spending have been avoided if the mechanism for implementing the ban had been thought through in advance?