Teachers often point to mobile devices as a distraction for students, Nowacka said in an interview with private broadcaster RMF FM.
“Students lose focus, some take out their phones. If this is a tool that teachers need, I will gladly do it for them,” she said, adding that an exception would apply when a teacher decides a phone is needed in the educational process.
Nowacka said the timing would depend on how the bill moves through parliament and whether it is linked to a Civic Platform (centrist, governing Koalicja Obywatelska party, with which she is aligned) proposal.
“That depends on how we proceed with the bill and whether we tie it to the Civic Platform project,” she said. If linked, “September 1 is guaranteed,” she added, while noting that the government track would take longer.
Asked about whether the president would sign such a law, Nowacka said: “I won’t quote the prime minister, but it would be bad if he didn’t sign things that protect children.”
Separately, Nowacka said the governing camp also plans to restrict minors’ access to social media, with preliminary assumptions already prepared.
“We have already prepared initial assumptions. I hope we will show them to you this week. Then we will prepare a law in close cooperation with NASK and the Ministry of Digital Affairs,” she said.
She said the Ministry of Digital Affairs is working on solutions that would allow platforms to communicate with an identity wallet and verify whether a user is over 15.
“We are convinced that platforms should bear responsibility for the content they deliver,” Nowacka said, adding that portals that do not comply would face “costly” consequences.
She said the rules would apply to social media platforms, but not messaging services such as Messenger or WhatsApp, arguing that “harmful contact” is initiated on social networks and that restricting communicators would be harder and less useful.
Nowacka also said she would decide by the end of March on the status of health education in the next school year, saying political controversy around the subject was unnecessary.
“A political row around this subject is completely unnecessary for me, so I will aim for the safest solution so that a young person knows how to take care of their health, how to get vaccinated, why to get tested, how to move, how to eat,” she said.
(jh)
Source: Polish Radio, RMF24