After the tragic events in the Belgrade Elementary School “Vladislav Ribnikar”, on the third of May, there was a review of the entire educational system, both in the countries of the region and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Measures and changes in the educational process were sought, in order to make students focus on teaching, and at the same time to prevent peer violence. As one of the frequent measures, the prohibition of mobile phones for students in schools began to be implemented. Another elementary school, in Široki Brijeg, has been implementing this measure for almost two years, and the results are more than good.
As they explained in the Second Elementary School, thanks to this measure, children talk more, socialize, and play is more and more present.
“The phone simply must not ring, it must not be seen, it must not be in the hand. If it rings or one of the teachers sees it, the student’s cell phone is confiscated, he must turn it off, hand it over to the assistant director and after 24 hours, i.e. the next day the parent should come and get the cell phone”, says Stanko Bazina, headmaster of “Second Primary School” Široki Brijeg.
The rule has yielded results, they explain in this school, because at the beginning of this year there were much fewer confiscated devices than at the beginning of the last school year.
School phones are available to children, so they can contact their parents, whether it’s about illness, injury or something else. They noticed that one of the key reasons for abuse among peers started with cell phones.
“What we have seen is that the number of children who reported that someone is harassing them, abusing them, sending some offensive messages, videos and the like has drastically decreased.”
“What is the most important thing in everything? It is control. Both at school and at home, and everything starts at home. Parents are the first educators and teachers of their children. And primary school is the foundation, the foundation of every human being”.
It is a large school that, in addition to the central one, also has seven regional schools and has more than 900 students. They engage in numerous activities, including humanitarian actions, and two holiday ones are currently underway. An adequate staff is employed, with an emphasis on school psychologists, to whom children turn more and more often without prejudice, which makes them especially happy, Bazina explained.
“When a parent comes to talk about their child who caused a problem, we don’t talk about that problem, but about the emotional connection between parent and child. Because if we talk only about the child’s problem, it usually ends up very wrong”, said Kristijan Kraljevic, school psychologist and shift manager.
A month ago, an initiative was submitted to the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of BiH regarding the drafting of regulations that would prohibit the use of mobile phones and tablets in all primary and secondary schools in the Federation, except in situations where use is necessary for educational, medical and other justified reasons. .
“I am not in favor of a complete ban, but I am absolutely in favor of educating the use of these elements because social networks can be useful. When I say that the problem is social networks, I specifically mean what is the abnormal use of social networks, i.e. what do social networks do to us they throw out as a prime element”, adds Vedran Zubic, professor of geography at “Gymnasium Dobrinja”.
If the law is adopted, it will begin to be applied in all primary and secondary schools in the territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
