PUTRAJAYA, Thurs - Students will not be allowed to use handphones in schools.
Education Minister Datuk Sri Hishammuddin Hussein ended the on-off ban on handphones today with a directive to this effect. [News Straits Times 20/01/2006]

He told reporters that the ban was his decision and not that of the Cabinet as reported by some Bahasa Malaysia newspapers.

"The issue of handphones did not even come up at the Cabinet meeting yesterday," he said after his ministry’s post-Cabinet meeting.

The ban is effective immediately and will include all schools, including boarding schools.

Director-General of Education Datuk Ahamad Sipon had on Jan 12 announced that students could use handphones in schools subjected to guidelines by the ministry.

Hishammuddin did not discount the possibility of the ban being lifted in stages in future.



Asked for the rationale behind the ban, he said it was obvious that most parties involved were not ready for students to use handphones in schools.

"From what I have read, and from what we have received here in the ministry, it is quite obvious that parents and teachers are not ready for the previous decision of allowing students to use handphones in school.

"In this case, if I did not revoke the approval and we went ahead with it, the implementation obviously would not have worked without the co-operation of teachers and parents," he said.

He said the ban was also linked to problems in monitoring students and observing guidelines.

On another issue, Hishammuddin denied that non-graduate teachers had been sidelined in the promotion of 10,000 teachers this year.

He said last year, 11,397 non- graduate teachers were promoted from Grade DGA29 to DGA32. "This year will see 37,732 non- graduate teachers promoted in the same manner," he added.

He said the National Union of Teaching Profession should liaise directly with the ministry on such matters (see also page 22).



He said issues like promotions and improving the teaching profession was applied across the board and not limited to certain sections of the profession.