Starting this fall, Ontario students won’t be able to bring their cellphones to class unless teachers are using them for educational reasons — a move critics say will be near-impossible to enforce.

“Ontario’s students need to be able to focus on their learning — not their cellphones,” Education Minister Lisa Thompson said in a statement released Tuesday.

“Last fall, we launched the largest-ever consultation on education in the history of Ontario. During this consultation we heard that 97 per cent of respondents support some form of a ban on cellphones.

During last year’s election campaign the Conservatives promised to introduce a ban on cellphones in classrooms.

Teachers, however, are allowed to incorporate cellphone use in lessons, and children with health or medical needs are exempt.

But given how ubiquitous the devices are among youth, it’s unclear if the government’s plan will work. It will be up to individual boards and schools to decide how to enforce the ban.

Leslie Wolfe, head of the Toronto local of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, called the province’s announcement “smoke and mirrors, amounting to telling their supporters they’ve kept a promise to ban cellphones while telling teachers they aren’t banned for the purpose of lessons and telling boards it’s really up to them.”

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Also, she added, “what is there to enforce? Is the government saying that a student can’t have a cellphone in their pocket? How would a classroom professional know?”

“Banning cellphones from being brought into the classroom will be extremely difficult to police from the provincial level,” agreed Lindsey Keene of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association. “Ensuring appropriate cellphone usage should remain up to teachers as to whether or not students can keep cellphones on their person, and should not be provincially mandated.”

Some boards have already grappled with curbing student cellphone use during the school day, including Toronto in 2007, which four years later rescinded its ban and left the decision up to teachers.

In 2015, New York ended its ban on cellphones, giving schools the authority to create their own policies, in part because parents wanted to be able to contact their children, and the rule was not equally enforced.

Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, said “there isn’t a whole lot of substance to this announcement” that he believes the government rushed out to distract from the ongoing controversy over changes to the autism program.

Teachers, he said, already have the authority to disallow devices during class.

“It’s not clear to me what’s really new,” added NDP education critic Marit Stiles.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario believes “educators should be teaching students how to use mobile devices critically, collaboratively and responsibly; and to recognize when they are a helpful tool versus a distraction.

“A cellphone ban would create issues around the care of personal devices that are confiscated, and the potential of escalating interactions with students. This would be a particular challenge for occasional teachers who are less likely to know the intricacies of the school policies or the dynamics of classroom relationships.”

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The education ministry will amend a provincial code of conduct policy and require boards to uphold the ban, while allowing some variation from board to board and school to school.

Ryan Bird of the Toronto District School Board said the ban there — more than a decade ago — was at a time when phones were mostly used for talking and texting and didn’t have the capability to be used as “valuable tools” in learning.

“In general, at the TDSB, we encourage the use of technology in classrooms — but the appropriate use of technology,” he said.

The Ontario Public School Boards’ Association notes that parents often like the security of knowing they can reach their children at school, especially in case of emergency.