MALMÖ, Sweden — Long championed as a leader in adopting digital technology, Sweden is set to ban mobile phones in schools beginning in the fall for the next academic year as part of a broad, international reversal on the use of screens in classrooms.Since 2023, the Scandinavian country's center-right coalition government has pursued a policy prioritizing more reading time and less screen time, particularly among preschool students, by favoring books and other traditional learning tools.Lawmaker Joar Forsell, chairperson of the Swedish parliament's education committee, said officials have seen a decline in the general ability to read and write in Sweden, especially among younger students."We're rolling the screens back because we believe that books and more traditional ways of learning are better for kids," Forsell said.Sweden's plans are part of a broader shift and a digital reckoning against smartphones in schools internationally after countries outfitted their campuses with laptops, tablets and learning apps for their students.Classrooms have become saturated with screens and a growing number of parents, teachers and school districts say it is time to scale back.In the Nordics, Denmark looks set to implement a similar ban to Sweden, and a law restricting use of mobile devices in schools in Finland came into effect last August.
Other countries from Spain to South Korea have taken a variety of steps that range from a ban of mobile phones in classrooms to limits on screen-based homework.The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school district in the U.S., has said it will ban screens until second grade, require daily caps for screen time per grade, ban YouTube and require an audit of all education technology contracts.Tech-savvy Sweden, which is home to music streamer Spotify and telecoms giant Ericsson, has one of the most digitally advanced education systems in the world.But the mobile ban aims to foster learning environments with fewer dist...