A group of clever Kiwi teens have outsmarted the government’s new phone ban in schools by grabbing themselves some old tech to communicate between classes.
The year 12 Auckland students switched out their usual BYOD (bring your own device) for walkie-talkies.
The unnamed 16-year-old behind the sneaky hack told The Herald: "If the phone ban wasn’t in place then we wouldn’t have had to do this."
He hopes the walkie-talkies catch on with other students using them to communicate between classes and organise their lunchtime plans.
The anonymous student said: “I think the cellphone ban has some merits, however, it also has disadvantages that I hope the introduction of walkie-talkies will fix.”
“It allows us to communicate without using our phones, but because the walkie-talkies are designed purely for communication they can’t be used as a distraction for games or the internet, a problem that the phone ban seems to have been introduced to solve,” he added.
Because the new ban is only restrictive of cellphone usage, their walkie-talkies haven’t caused too much of a stir amongst teachers.
In fact, The President of the Secondary Principals’ Association, Vaughan Couillault, was surprisingly impressed by the “innovation”.
While other students are trying to get away with using a ‘burner phone’ others have adopted the old-school approach of bringing an iPod and speakers to listen to music in their free time.
And while social media is banned on the schools’ networks, some students are resorting to emailing their mates at lunch.
According to Grant Pollard, the acting leader of the Ministry of Education’s Operations and Integration Group Te Pae Aronui says: “Most schools have existing BYOD policies around the appropriate use of laptops and tablets.”
“Schools can make decisions about the management of other devices like walkie-talkies in consultation with their community," he said.
**crrsh** It seems walkie-talkies are in the clear for now **over**!
