A spate of robberies targeting high school students for their cellular phones has brought into sharp focus the lack of official policy on the increasingly popular practice of taking mobile phones to schools.

In one extreme case, an armed man entered the Cornwall College premises in the north coast resort city of Montego Bay and robbed a student of his cell phone, triggering alarm among parents who thought they were equipping their children with a modern tool for emergencies.

Cornwall College promptly slapped a ban on the use of cell phones at the school, arguing that it was for the safety of the students.

At the all-girl Queen’s School located at Central Avenue in Kingston, teachers reported that several students had been robbed of their cell phones. The Constant Spring Police confirmed at least one of the robberies.

“The thieves are especially targeting those with Digicel phones,” Queen’s vice-principal, Vivian Cox told the Sunday Observer. “We have reported the matter to the police and we have asked them to patrol the area, We have also cautioned the students to be careful in carrying their cell phones,” Cox said.

A parent who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she was concerned about the safety of her child who attends The Queen’s School, “because they told my daughter and the student body to walk in groups and not to display their phones publicly after school”.

A spokesman for the Constant Spring Police said the station had received one robbery report from a Queen’s student. A group of young men from the depressed Grants Pen community nearby had taken the student’s phone.

“We caught the perpetrator but the parent did not press charges,” the spokesman told the Sunday Observer. “When we called the mother and child in to identify the suspect, the student was in tears and the mother said that she did not want to put her daughter through all that stress.”

Vice-principal Audrie Frater of the Calabar High School on Red Hills Road complained that that school had been spending too much time dealing with cell phone-related problems. Thieves were going onto the school compound or lay-waiting students after school to grab their cell phones.

“Parents need to be concerned that this could cost the life of their child in Half-Way-Tree or somewhere,” Frater said. “You would think that with phones so cheap, people would no longer steal them.”

In the absence of official directive, the education ministry appeared to be giving tacit approval to schools to use their discretion in applying rules for the use of mobile phones.

“Individual schools have their own guidelines and rules, and once those rules don’t infringe the laws then they are okay,” Edwin Thomas, the public relations officer in the education ministry told this newspaper.

Jamaica Teachers Association head, Sadie Comrie, expressed similar sentiments, saying schools should make their rules to deal with their individual situation.

In contrast to the Jamaican education authorities, the eastern Caribbean island of Barbados put an outright ban on cell phones, on grounds that it was too disruptive to the school environment.

Most Kingston schools checked by the Sunday Observer frowned on the use of cell phones but reluctantly accepted that they had a useful purpose.

“We don’t encourage the use of cell phones in school,” said Queens’ Cox, “but we know students do carry the phones for various reasons. What we do is to take it from them at the front desk and return the phones when school dismisses.”

A breach of the rule, such as being found with cellular phones during class times, could risk the phone being confiscated and returned at the end of the school term. Cox was also concerned about the possibility of unscrupulous students using the cell phone to cheat on exams by means of text messaging.

Calabar’s Frater said teachers at the school spent half the time dealing with cell phone problems. “It disrupts school life because some of the boys play games during school times and so on,” he said. “We have to take the phones from them, tag them and give them to an adult because we cannot allow them free rein.”

Other Corporate Area schools such as Holy Childhood High, St George’s College and St Andrew’s High also said that official school policy was not to encourage cell phone use during the school day.

“Our policy is that from 7:30 am to 2:15 pm, cell phones are not to be used,” said a senior administrator at Holy Childhood High School near Half-Way-Tree. “If used, the phones are taken and kept in the office until parents come and collect them.”