Editorial Ugly Twist In Schools
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday August 14, 2007
THE growing incidence of school students using mobile phones equipped with video cameras to post vicious playground brawls and illicit teen sex on internet websites will concern all parents.
While the use of mobile phones at schools has been an area of concern for many years, these revelations and others, such as video phones being used to incite intimidation and bullying, add a sinister dimension to the issue.Police have reportedly received more than 25 reports from government schools over serious incidents linked to video-equipped mobiles in a six-month period to April this year.Those figures in themselves do not seem large, given the state's huge school-age population, but with more and more students likely to seek their 15 seconds of fame on an international website, the potential for real trouble is clear.Yesterday, calls to ban video-equipped phones from schools received a muted response from education authorities, teachers and the Government.Those responses may well have been a reflection of the difficulty in finding a workable solution.
© 2007 Illawarra Mercury
