Teacher and parent groups at a Taipei news conference on Tuesday called on the government to request that Pokemon Go’s publishers ban the creation of game-related locations on Taiwan’s elementary and high school campuses, saying that they are a distraction to students and pose possible risks to their safety.
Last week, Pokemon Go, a popular augmented-reality mobile game, was released in Taiwan, causing a craze among the nation’s smartphone users.
The fall semester of elementary, junior high and senior-high schools is to begin on Aug. 29, raising concerns among teachers and parents.
Teachers are not equipped to tackle large groups of Pokemon Go players on campus, which would most likely happen if gaming locations begin to appear on school grounds, National Alliance of Parents Organization honorary director-general Wu Fu-pin (吳福濱) and National Federation of Teachers’ Unions president Chang Hsu-cheng (張旭政) said.
“Students will not pay attention in class and spend their energies catching Pokemon if there are gaming locations on campuses. The Ministry of Education should communicate our concerns to the game’s publisher,” Secondary and Elementary School Principals Association of the Republic of China director-general Weng Ching-tsai (翁慶才) said.
Teachers acknowledge mobile games such as Pokemon Go are an “unstoppable trend,” and schools would do well to consider educating students about them, he said.
National Senior High School Teachers’ Union secretary-general Huang Wen-lung (黃文龍) said that high school and vocational school teachers “have enough headaches” managing cellphone use, and some teachers’ solution of keeping students’ mobiles in a “phone coop” at a central location on campus has already led to “tension between students and faculty.”
He expects disputes over Pokemon Go to worsen teacher-student relations, Huang said.
Taiwan Parents’ Educational Alliance preparatory committee chairman Hsieh Kuo-ching (謝國清) said that while Pokemon Go might help teachers educate students about Taiwan’s geography, a campus “is no place for gaming locations.”
While the majority of elementary and high schools have closed campuses, many have campuses open to members of the general public, making it unlikely that teachers would be able to evict players if gaming locations are established on campuses, Deputy Minister of Education Tsai Ching-hwa (蔡清華) said.
The ministry plans to communicate with the game’s developer in the hopes that the problem can be avoided at the source, Tsai said.
School regulations do not allow students to use cellphones in class, and the ministry is considering including Pokemon Go and responsible use of devices in the information technology curriculum at high schools and vocational high schools, he added.
Deputy Minister of Education Lin Teng-chiao (林騰蛟) said that all public schools have rules governing cellphones use on campus, adding that the ministry would not add new regulations limiting or banning mobile device use.
One unnamed senior-high school student said in an interview that having Pokemon Go on campus would provide a good way to release stress from exams, but another student disagreed, saying that, as a third-year junior-high school student, gaming could be a distraction from school placement exam preparations.
Asked for comment, Keelung Municipal Nuan-Nuan Senior High School principal Cheng Yu-cheng (鄭裕成) said that school rules require students to put away their cellphones while in class, but there are no plans to interfere with their use at other times.
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