Pupils, the phone ban and suspensions

Education Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis recently stated that the number of pupils who have been suspended for using a cellphone at school after they were banned at the start of the year had surpassed 6,000. This is just a fraction of the student population, which tells us that the measure is working so far. The vast majority of pupils complied with the ban, which, quite frankly, surprised me.

I honestly did not expect youngsters who have made their phones extensions of themselves to abide by a measure that forbids them from using them during a third of their day. What does this prove? That disciplinary oversight works, under one condition: that those who exercise control in theory also do so in practice. And how do we know this is the case? Because wrongdoers are being punished.

The success of the measure so far is largely down to the teachers enforcing it. They are...