Governor of Tashkent province, Zoyir Mirzaev, at a meeting of the education council in Chirchik on February 27, invited educational institutions in the province to come up with a School With No Smartphone initiative.

He criticized the use of smartphones in school at a meeting of the provincial council for Education in Chirchik and stated that, in agreement with parents, students and teachers should be prohibited from using telephones on school grounds.

“Probably you saw the news on social networks the other day that the countries of Central Asia have banned the use of phones in schools. The other day it was banned in Kazakhstan. This also applies to teachers during classes. They banned bringing phones onto school... You are waiting for the state to pass a law on this issue,” he said.

According to him, not a single school leader has come up with an initiative to stop using phones in schools.

“No one said that at the meeting they agreed with the parents and, as an experiment, they were not allowed into school with telephones, as a result of which in 11 months the number of children reading books increased by so much, their academic performance increased so much. Most principals fail to manage their teams. Why didn’t the principals who are doing well take such an initiative?” - he said, proposing, first of all, to ban the use of phones for teachers, who, thanks to this, will be less stressed, and the demand for psychologists will decrease.

Zoyir Mirzaev said that a school that comes up with a School With No Smartphone initiative in agreement with parents will receive 300 million soums in the form of incentives.

In 2023, in the Tashkent province, 139 schoolchildren committed 122 crimes, of which 44 were 9th graders, 34 were 10th graders, and another 29-30% were 11th graders.

He reported an increase in crime among schoolchildren in Angren (from 2 to 11 cases), Bekabad (from 3 to 9), Buka (from 4 to 8), Akkurgan (from 1 to 4), Chinaz (from 2 to 6) provinces.

“We need to draw conclusions. No one can guarantee that “there will be no crime in my school.” As long as you have such a misfortune as a telephone in your hands, anything can happen. You give suggestions that these phones are ruining students. By chance, have our phones ruined us too? They spoil us too,” he said.

He also said that in elementary grades, siblings of students who are studying in high school come to parent-teacher meetings instead of parents.