Screens Out, Parents In: Shelton Says It's Time to Take Back Our Schools
Family First Party
A growing number of Australian schools are ditching laptops and tablets for pen, paper and textbooks amid a wave of parent-led campaigns and alarming NAPLAN results, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Family First National Director Lyle Shelton has welcomed the growing ‘digital detox’ movement sweeping Australian classrooms, but says the push to ditch devices is just the first step in a much bigger fight to hand control of children's education back to parents — not bureaucrats and ideologues.
Schools including St Joseph's Primary in Schofields and The Illawarra Grammar School have reported improved literacy, attention spans and wellbeing after replacing screens with books and handwriting, while grassroots group The Heads Up Alliance has gathered thousands of signatures demanding primary schools go tablet-free and high schools scale back laptop use. The push follows the latest NAPLAN results, which showed writing skills going backwards in Years 3, 7 and 9, with Year 3 students recording the worst writing and numeracy results since 2023.
"Parents didn’t need a government taskforce to work out that handing a six-year-old an iPad instead of a pencil was a bad idea — common sense told them that years ago," Mr Shelton said.
“"What we’re seeing in these schools is proof of what Family First has said all along: get back to basics — reading, writing, arithmetic and real thinking skills — and kids do better. It’s not complicated, unless you’re an education bureaucrat.”
Mr Shelton said the screens debate was symptomatic of a much bigger problem — that for too long, parents have been locked out of decisions about how, and what, their children are taught.
“Ditching the devices is just the entry point. The real question is who’s in charge of our kids’ education — parents, or the department? For years bureaucrats have hidden behind broad ‘in loco parentis’ powers to override mums and dads on everything from what their child is taught about gender to whether their kid needs a laptop to learn the alphabet," Mr Shelton said
“Family First says enough. Parents are the primary educators of their children, not the state, and it’s time the curriculum, the classroom and the culture reflected that.”
Mr Shelton pointed out that while parents, teachers and even Federal Education Minister Jason Clare now agree screens are harming children’s learning, government is dragging its feet — with the curriculum authority not due to report on reinstating pen-and-paper NAPLAN testing until 2027.
"Everyone from school principals to the Education Minister now admits what parents have known for years — that screens are dumbing down our kids. So why does it take a taskforce and eighteen months for a department to work out how to hand a kid a pen? This is exactly the kind of top-down, ideology-before-evidence thinking that got us into this mess," Mr Shelton said.
"Family First doesn’t need a committee to tell primary schools to ban devices and bring back real books — we’d just do it, and let parents and principals, not Canberra, decide what works for their kids. That’s exactly what our education policy calls for."
"Family First is calling on federal and state governments to immediately ban devices in primary school classrooms, wind back laptop use in high schools, restore pen-and-paper testing across NAPLAN, and rewrite the national curriculum to put reading, writing, arithmetic, history and real thinking skills back at its centre. And most importantly — give parents, not departments, not lobby groups, the final say over how their children are raised and educated," Mr Shelton said.
ENDS
KEY FACTS
- A growing number of NSW schools, including St Joseph's Primary Schofields and The Illawarra Grammar School, have ditched laptops and tablets for pen, paper and handwriting, reporting improved literacy, focus and wellbeing
- Grassroots group The Heads Up Alliance has gathered thousands of signatures calling for primary schools to be tablet and device-free, and for laptop use in high schools to be scaled back
- Latest NAPLAN results show writing standards fell in Years 3, 7 and 9, with Year 3 students recording the worst writing and numeracy results since 2023
- Only 27.8 per cent of Australian children aged 5-17 meet national screen time guidelines, according to ABS data
- Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has backed a ‘digital detox’ in schools, but the national curriculum authority (ACARA) will not report back on reinstating pen-and-paper NAPLAN testing until 2027
- From 2027 Victoria will impose screen time limits in state primary schools; NSW has already banned mobile phones in schools
- Family First's education policy calls for parents to be recognised as the primary educators of their children, removal of broad ‘in loco parentis’ powers from education departments, and a curriculum refocused on reading, writing, arithmetic, history and thinking skills
Lyle Shelton is Family First’s National Director, NSW Legislative Council lead candidate.
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Lyle Shelton
