Australian schools are in trouble.

Brisbane high school teacher Larissa has been teaching for more than 25 years and has observed the decline in educational standards over that time:

“It’s getting worse. I can tell you that classrooms are no longer set up for teaching and learning. Since the introduction of 1-to-1 devices, students are endlessly distracted and getting them to pay attention is a constant challenge. Screens have placed a barrier between my students and me.”

Parents across the country are concerned too.  Nadine, a mother of three from Wollongong, laments:

“The hard work of limiting the hours my children spend online each day is made impossible when my daughter in 7th grade is doing her schoolwork on her laptop throughout the day, and then back on it again in the evenings at home. Even my 8 year old son has to complete homework on a tablet. I'm not comfortable with it at all, but what can I do?"

Experts are also increasingly questioning the rush to place iPads, laptops and other internet-connected devices in the hands of schoolchildren, pointing to an over-reliance on screens as a significant contributor to educational decline. When cognitive neuroscientist and former teacher Dr Jared Cooney Horvath testified before the US Senate earlier this year, he described the regrettable state of affairs in these stark terms:

“A sad fact that our generation has to face is this: our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age.”

Sweden has seen enough and is already taking steps to retreat from the digital classroom.

Australian parents now call on education ministers across Australia to implement the Five Principles for the Use of Screens and Technology in Australian Schools, summarised below:

1. Primary schools must be device-free.

The tools of learning for primary school students should be books, pencils and paper. Primary schools must be spaces completely free from student-facing devices. Homework in primary school should never be device-based.

2. Foundational literacy and penmanship must be restored as core educational priorities.

With renewed intent, we must ensure that, by the end of primary school, Australian children are able to read and write fluently for sustained periods.

3. The default mode of high school learning must be books, paper, handwriting and human relationships.

One-to-one internet-connected devices such as laptops are an ever-present source of distraction for high school students, disrupting the focus needed to think deeply and learn new concepts. Cognitive science is clear that divided attention undermines learning. Research also shows that students comprehend and retain information better from print than from screens. High schools should therefore suspend the routine use of 1:1 student devices unless and until there is clear evidence that they are effective and deliver a net educational benefit to students.

4. School-endorsed apps must be proven safe and effective.

Across all year levels, any EdTech required or endorsed by schools must be independently proven to be efficacious and free from gamification, manipulative design features, advertising and inappropriate content.

5. Generative AI has no place in school learning.

Large language models and other generative AI systems have no place in primary school or high school - at least not yet. At school, children should take every opportunity to exercise their own minds, develop their own voices and strengthen their own capacity to think. Many students presently use AI as little more than a shortcut to thinking. That is anathema to the purposes of education. Unless and until we can develop methods of deploying generative AI that demonstrably add net value to student learning - not merely in theory, but in practice - it should not be used at all in the classroom or for schoolwork at home.

Sign this petition and help put evidence, not corporate interests, back at the centre of Australian classrooms.