Report #3: Cell Phone For Elementary School Students

We discussed a topic of the day "Cell phone for elementary school students". According to the moderator, 30 students died in one year without mobile phones, and if they had their cell phones, they would be helped by calling someone. So, to save such students, the moderator made a suggestion about cell phone for every elementary school student.

The government officer proposed that the government will pay all costs for body of cell phone from income tax. After students get the new cell phone, their parents need to pay only 1.000 yen a month. A woman who is one of the panel members, and has a daughter feels ill at ease about danger in using cell phone. She is anxious about bad Web sites. A woman who works for a mobile phone company offers that the cell phone gave to elementary school students has a restrictive function, that is to say, students cannot surf the Internet with their cell phones. They can only call and send an e-mail to limited numbers and addresses, in other words, their parents, school, the police and a fire station. The mobile phone has GPS (global positioning system). This system will give peace of mind to parents.

During the discussion, we could not reach any consensus because most of the audience was in the opposite position. And the discussion finished with the voice of authority; “It is the parental responsibility.” It was the answer to the topic which nobody could say.

I'd like to support that idea. In Japan, it is said that 30% of elementary students have their cell phone. But the other side of the equation is that 70% of parents disagreed with cell phone for their children. This number is not small. From the present situation, I think the government doesn’t have to give cell phones to all elementary school students. We can save students in another way, such as GPS devices.