[In This Economy] Will banning phones in schools work?

Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!

Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Visit Suniway.ph to learn

Just weeks into the new school year, the Department of Education (DepEd) ordered all its regional directors and school heads to strictly enforce DepEd Order No. 6, s. 2026, which bans cellphones and other gadgets during instructional hours.

A day later, Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian renewed his push for the Electronic Gadget-Free Schools Act, which he refiled in the 20th Congress as Senate Bill No. 627. If passed, it will prohibit gadget use by K-12 students in all public and private schools nationwide, with exceptions for teacher-directed activities, health conditions, and emergencies.

The public seems sold. A Pulse Asia survey in June 2024 (see table below) commissioned by Gatchalian found that 76% of Filipino adults favor banning cellphones in schools, with majorities across all regions and income classes.

Image from Senator Win Gatchalian website

We’re hardly alone. By UNESCO’s count, fewer than 1 in 4 countries restricted smartphones in schools in 2023. By early 2025 it was 40%, and today 114 education systems, or nearly 3 in 5 countries, have some form of national ban. France banned phones in primary and middle schools as early as 2018. The Netherlands followed in 2024.

So, the Philippines seems to be riding a global wave. But does banning phones actually work? Here the evidence is more instructive (and more sobering) than the rhetoric suggests.

What the studies say

A well-known study by economists Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy tracked schools in four English cities before and after they banned phones. Test scores in high-stakes exams rose by about 0.07 standard deviations, roughly the equivalent of adding five days to the school year.

Strikingly, the gains went almost entirely to the weakest students: those in the bottom quartile improved by twice the average, while top students were unaffected.

Another study in Norway by Sara Abrahamsson found something similar. After middle schools banned smartphones, girls’ grades improved, bullying fell for both boys and girls, and consultations for psychological symptoms among girls declined. Again, the largest gains accrued to students from poorer families.

For a country like ours, with some of the world’s most dismal Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores and widest learning gaps, these results matter. Phones distract everyone, students and teachers alike, but they appear to drag down struggling students most. A phone ban could be a cheap policy against educational inequality.

But consider the counter-evidence. A 2025 study covering 1,227 students in 30 English schools found that students in schools with strict phone bans were no better off in mental wellbeing than those in permissive schools. Why? Because bans didn’t reduce total screen time. Students simply shifted their scrolling to after school, still logging 4 to 6 hours daily.

The study is a snapshot, not an experiment, so it can’t rule out the benefits of phone usage. But it punctures the belief or hope that school bans alone will magically fix teenagers’ relationship with their screens.

The Dutch experience splits the difference. A government-commissioned evaluation of their national ban found that three-fourths of surveyed high schools reported better student focus, and nearly two-thirds saw a better social climate. That means kids actually talking to each other at recess. But only a third reported improved academic results.

Lessons for the Philippines

Three lessons seem to stand out. First, design matters a lot. In the Norwegian study, effects were strongest in schools that physically collected phones at the start of the day, not those that merely told students to keep them pocketed.

DepEd’s current order bans use only during instructional hours. That’s the loosest variant, which students can evade the moment the teacher turns around. Stricter versions, however, need storage (pouches, lockers) that many public schools can’t currently afford.

Second, in many Filipino public schools, the smartphone is the de facto textbook, library, and typhoon-emergency hotline rolled into one. DepEd itself pushes digital learning platforms accessible mainly by phone. Any ban must carve out genuine learning uses without the exceptions swallowing the rule and erasing the benefits of phone usage. That’s easier said than done when enforcement falls on overworked teachers handling classes of 50 or 60.

Third, and most important: we need proper impact evaluation of these nascent policies.

Senator Gatchalian’s bill and DepEd’s order both charge ahead without any plan to measure impact (as far as I know). Since implementation will inevitably be staggered across divisions and schools anyway, DepEd could easily track test scores, bullying incidents, and attendance in early-adopting versus late-adopting schools. Other countries stumbled into their evidence. But we can do better and generate ours deliberately, at little extra cost.

The evidence, on balance, favors restricting phones in schools, modestly and mostly for the students who need help most. But a ban is not education reform. It will not build classrooms, train teachers, or feed hungry pupils.

At best, it buys back attention: those minutes that a student needs to refocus after every ping. In a school system as far behind as ours, though, even a few stolen minutes are well worth reclaiming. – Rappler.com

Jan Carlo “JC” Punongbayan, PhD is an associate professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE). His professional experience includes the Securities and Exchange Commission, the World Bank Office in Manila, the Far Eastern University Public Policy Center, and the National Economic and Development Authority. JC writes a weekly economics column for Rappler.com. He is also co-founder of UsapangEcon.com and co-host of Usapang Econ Podcast.

His first book, False Nostalgia: The Marcos “Golden Age” Myths and How to Debunk Them, was published by Ateneo de Manila University Press in February 2023. His second book, Twin Plagues: How Duterte and Covid-19 Wrecked the Philippine Economy, will be published by Penguin Random House SEA in June 2026.  Follow him on Instagram (@jcpunongbayan).

Here are other In This Economy pieces you may have missed:

Click here for other In This Economy articles.