Action on mobile phones in schools long overdue

As nervous as we are at suggesting any new legislation, the current position of leaving it to individual headteachers has always appeared to be a cop out on the part of the government.

As we report today, Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth has now signalled that a re-elected SNP administration would be ready to take further action – and that the next government would have to “consider legislative change”. The question is, why has this not happened already?

The evidence has been there for some time, the feeling of teachers is well known. We can all see the decline in behaviour and educational standards.

Union leaders recently pointed out how phones cause interrupted learning, reduced concentration, and even confrontations when staff ask pupils to hand over devices.

They say schools cannot be expected to manage this alone, and we agree. Schools also cannot be expected to manage the cost of such a policy, which in the case of using lockable pouches could be considerable.

While a blanket ban on phones during the school day may be unnecessary and is perhaps even undesirable, it is surely not difficult to find a way to ensure mobiles are not disrupting education, and issue firm national guidance to ensure this happens in every school all of the time.

Scottish Conservative Pam Gosal says the Tories planned to bring their own Bill in the next session of parliament to ban mobile phones in schools, while her colleague Miles Briggs described the impact of phone use on young people as "a growing public heath emergency".

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, meanwhile, has said he is willing to “have the argument with anybody” to ban phones in schools.

There is already cross-party consensus on this issue. Action on mobiles in schools is long overdue.

Morag and a sheepish exhibition

They made history before being overshadowed by the fame of a certain superstar sheep.

But now Morag and her identical twin Megan, the first mammals to be successfully cloned from differentiated cells, are having a deserved moment in the spotlight again. Their births in June 1995 at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh were hailed as a technical breakthrough and made the birth of Dolly the sheep the following year possible.

Morag, who died in 2000, has now gone on permanent display at the National Museum of Rural Life in East Kilbride, as part of a new section exploring the role of science in agriculture.

Professor Andrew Kitchener, principal curator of vertebrate biology at NMS, said: “The birth of Dolly the sheep is remembered as one of the great scientific breakthroughs of the late 20th century, but that historic moment wouldn’t have been possible without the arrival of Morag and her twin.”

We are glad they are getting the recognition they deserve,