No blanket phone ban: Saxony-Anhalt develops guidelines for schools
To regulate the use of private mobile devices in schools, Saxony-Anhalt relies on guidelines that recommend but do not mandate across the board.
(Image: Vitaliy Kriuchkov/ Shutterstock.com)
Saxony-Anhalt is following the path of Lower Saxony and Hamburg regarding the question of bans on private mobile devices in schools. This was explained by the state-owned State Institute for School Quality and Teacher Training (LISA) to the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung at the beginning of January. Lower Saxony and Hamburg have formulated recommendations for their schools, which they are to orient themselves by but do not have to follow. Hesse, on the other hand, has anchored a so-called “blanket ban” for private digital devices in the school law; Bremen has implemented this by decree (PDF). However, even these states still allow for independent decisions at schools for pedagogical use.
Decision remains with the schools
The announced guideline is connected with the decree “Digitally Supported Teaching and Learning,” which is currently being developed, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Education told dpa. It is intended to describe the existing legal framework for schools but also to make recommendations according to school types and age groups – as is already the case in Lower Saxony and Hamburg. It is expected to be presented in the first half of 2026.
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The principle that each school in the state may develop its own solution, “which meets the local conditions and is to be updated regularly,” will continue to be pursued. This is to happen in consultation with the respective school-wide conference. This decision follows a hearing in the state parliament at the end of November 2025, at which Education Minister Jan Riedel (CDU) as well as teacher and student representatives spoke out against a nationwide ban. At the same time, this approach differs from the statements of the Leopoldina, based in Halle, which recommended a ban on private mobile devices in schools up to the 10th grade in a discussion paper (PDF) in the summer of 2025.
Example of Lower Saxony's Guideline
The Lower Saxony guideline explains, for example, what the legal situation is for confiscating and storing private smartphones or whether access is permitted. Whether private devices are allowed in class and for what purpose they are used there is clearly assigned to the decisions of teachers: “The use of smartphones in class is the pedagogical responsibility of the teacher (§ 50 NSchG).” At the same time, the guideline lists the possible “health effects” that digital devices can have on children and adolescents. For primary school, the use of smartphones in a school context is explicitly not recommended, and for 5th and 6th grade (lower secondary level I), a continuation of the recommendations for primary school is also recommended. From the 7th grade onwards, the guideline continues to recommend prohibiting the private use of smartphones in class and also establishing smartphone-free times and zones. Only from the upper secondary level II is this recommendation no longer repeated.
(kbe)
