Students at National Yuanlin Agricultural and Industrial Vocational High School in Changhua County accused a military instructor of ordering them to allow access to their mobile phones so he could read what they had been posting on social media.
The Ministry of Education on May 14 announced that schools from September are to ban students from bringing mobile devices into classrooms, with some schools — including the Changhua school — implementing the policy early.
School officials told reporters that it had received an order from the ministry to investigate an incident on May 2 based on a complaint from students.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
The military instructor suspected that students were skirting the ban by handing in a dummy device and secretly taking their main device into the classroom, Chinese-language media reported.
The instructor conducted an inspection, ordering students to go to his office individually, students told reporters.
He ordered them to unlock their phones so that he could view messages, including on Line, as he wanted to check whether the devices were connected to the Internet, the students said.
“The military instructor took a tough stance and spoke forcefully,” one student said. “He told us that if we did not comply, he would contact our parents and punish us.”
Students said that the instructor was targeting girls, as he called in 15 female students and no males.
The military instructor denied targeting girls, saying he conducted the inspection of devices based on student seating numbers.
The inspections were not to delve into private messages, but merely to determine whether the device had been used during class, he said.
“Some students complained, so I stopped the inspection,” he said. “There was no targeting of female students, it just happens that the first 15 seating numbers were all females.”
One female student said that some of the other girls were crying.
“We felt humiliated, because the phones contained secret conversations and private stuff,” she said. “It was not right to invade into our privacy in this manner.”
“We are not criminals and have not done anything wrong,” she said. “The military instructor is not a police officer and has no right to check the contents of our phones.”
School officials said that upon receiving the order from the ministry, they reminded the military instructor to follow school guidelines.
He has been told to be more prudent and respect students’ right to privacy, they said.
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