10,000 Sign Petition to Cut Screen Time in Schools

A grassroots movement to reduce screen time in Australian classrooms has taken off, with almost 10,000 people signing.The “Australian Parents Demand Less Screen Time in Classrooms” petition was started by the Heads Up Alliance, which includes concerned parents keen to make a change.The group has so far supported movements such as holding back on smartphone use among children, as well as the under-16s social media ban, which is now national legislation.Co-founder and Director Dany Elachi told The Epoch Times the group believed classrooms had become overly digital.“Many high schools now require students to bring their own laptops to classes,” he said.“They’re often using them from the very first bell of the day till the last.”Some schools may start screentime as early as prep or Year 2.Elachi believes the intention was never to become so reliant on computers when technology was first introduced.“We want the default position to be textbooks, pens and paper,” he said, explaining the process was better for memory retention.Elachi has called for a renewed focus on literacy and handwriting.“Books are being read through screens, even in primary school,” he said.“We just think in those early years there’s not really any good reason to have screens involved in learning.”The point of the petition, according to Elachi, is to generate conversation and raise public awareness before being presented to the government.“It’s getting worse. I can tell you that classrooms are no longer set up for teaching and learning. Since the introduction of 1-to-1 devices, students are endlessly distracted and getting them to pay attention is a constant challenge,” said Brisbane High School teacher Larissa.“Screens have placed a barrier between my students and me.”The petition also mentions cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath’s testimony before the U.S. Senate this year, where he says: “A sad fact that our generation has to face is this: our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age.”NAPLAN Results FallingThe push comes as one in three school students fail to meet basic benchmarks in the latest National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests.The test was first made fully digital in 2022.In every grade level, reading scores were lower than 2025 results, while only Year 5s improved their writing ability on last year.Federal Education Minister Jason Clare says he is considering the impact of digitisation on children’s learning.“Some of the writing results … make me wonder whether young people today are spending so much time writing texts, short messages rather than long form paragraphs that it’s having an impact on their writing,” he said, according to AAP.The Epoch Times contacted Clare’s office to ask if the government would consider introducing measures to reduce students’ screen time.Push for AI Caution in NSWDeputy Premier and Minister for Education Prue Car has just instructed the New South Wales (NSW) Education Standards Authority to urgently consider measures to protect the integrity of the Higher School Certificate—the final student assessment—as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools became more prevalent.Car is calling for a moratorium on unsupervised, take-home assessment tasks, alongside a broader review to inspect the impact of AI on students’ cognitive development.“Artificial intelligence has enormous potential to support teaching and learning, but it should never replace the thinking, creativity, and hard work that education is designed to develop,” Car said in a statement.“We need to act now as the evidence continues to emerge.“It is better to put sensible safeguards in place while we fully understand AI’s long-term impact on student learning.”