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The Nordic country is planning to enforce a sweeping nationwide ban on mobile phones in every educational institutions in a bid to improve pupil safety and learning environment.

Important Information of the New Policy

Beginning in the upcoming academic year in the 2026–2027 session, it will become required for each learning center and extracurricular programs to gather students’ mobile devices and retain them until the conclusion of the session.

This fresh measure will affect students between 6–16 years of age and is included in a broader package of planned academic measures unveiled by the government this week.

Additional Changes In Addition to the Mobile Restriction

Along with the mobile phone ban, the proposed changes will additionally address aspects such as the curriculum, the assessment framework, and instructor upskilling.

This represents announcing now is a landmark financial commitment in schools and the most significant reform agenda in exceeding the past 30 years.

Financial Support and Roll-out

The government has allocated 95 million kronor (£7.52m) for next year and one hundred million SEK for the following year to facilitate the enforcement of the device prohibition.

Even though a large number of learning centers in the country currently confiscate mobile phones at the commencement of the day, pupils have frequently devised strategies to bypass the restriction, such as by submitting a decoy phone or claiming that they forgot their phone or that it is out of order.

It must cover everyone in every one of the nation’s classrooms. It covers every student in Sweden and is compulsory.

International Context

Earlier this year, neighboring Denmark likewise stated intentions to ban cellphones in schools and extracurricular programs, based on the advice of a state-appointed panel that also found that children younger than 13 ought not to possess their own mobile device.

Norway last year introduced a firm minimum age of 15 for social media use, with authorities claiming tech companies of being “working against” youngsters’ cognitive development.

Latest findings from the Netherlands, which issued national guidelines in 2014 advising a mobile restriction in learning environments—a rule that almost every educational institutions have since implemented—has revealed notable improvements in the academic atmosphere.

According to the study, 75% of secondary schools stated that learners found it easier to concentrate, and more than one in four reported that performance had gotten better.

Meanwhile, France earlier this year strengthened its current restriction on devices in junior high institutions.