Limiting Gadgets, Restoring Depth of Learning: Understanding Ministerial Circular No. 18/2026
The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Prof. Abdul Mu’ti, has issued Circular Number 18 of 2026 concerning the Restriction of Gadget Use in Educational Units. This policy arrives amidst children’s lives becoming increasingly attached to mobile phones, social media, digital games, and various applications that constantly compete for their attention.
This circular is easily misunderstood as a prohibition on bringing gadgets to school. In fact, its substance is not a total ban, but a restriction on usage. Gadgets may still be used for learning under a teacher’s direction, in emergencies, for medical needs, for the accessibility of students with disabilities, for transport, and for other accountable needs.
This means the government is not hostile towards technology. What it seeks to control is the inappropriate, excessive use of technology that disrupts the educational process. Technology remains necessary, but it must be positioned as a learning tool, not as the master of a child’s attention.
The problem in education today is not actually a lack of information. Children live in an abundance of information. In one hand, they can find knowledge, entertainment, conversations, games, and even a seemingly boundless world. However, an abundance of information does not always give birth to depth of understanding. A child can know many things quickly, but is not necessarily able to understand a single issue thoroughly. They easily jump from one piece of information to another, but find it increasingly difficult to persist in reading long texts, contemplate complex problems, or complete tasks requiring perseverance.
The classroom has also changed. In the past, learning disruptions might have come from chatting with a deskmate. Now, a small screen can take a student out of the classroom without them having to leave their seat. Their body is present before the teacher, but their mind has wandered to an incoming message, a short video, a game, or social media.
Therefore, restricting gadgets is fundamentally an effort to return attention to the learning process. Education requires time to read, think, ask, try, fail, improve, and reflect. All of this is only possible when students have sufficient attention.
This is where the circular meets the idea of Deep Learning. Deep Learning does not merely push students to find answers, but to understand concepts, connect knowledge with life, solve real problems, discuss, collaborate, and reflect. Technology can certainly assist this process. However, the presence of gadgets in the classroom does not automatically make learning modern. Without a clear pedagogical purpose, gadgets merely shift distractions from outside the school into the learning environment. Students appear busy looking at screens, but are not necessarily building understanding.
This circular also serves as a reminder that school is not just a place to acquire knowledge. School is a space for encounters. At school, children learn to make friends, listen, disagree, cooperate, apologise, wait their turn, and understand the feelings of others. Today, we often see children sitting together, yet each is immersed in a screen. Break times, which should be spaces for conversation, turn into time spent staring at gadgets. Direct interaction diminishes, while conflicts from the digital realm are brought into the school.
Consequently, restricting gadgets is also part of an effort to restore schools as vibrant social spaces. Children need to re-experience conversation, play, group work, sports, arts, and various activities that bring them together in real life.
However, a good policy can lose its meaning if implemented incorrectly. Restrictions must not turn into repressive actions. Schools should not confiscate gadgets without procedure, humiliate students, or check private conversations and accounts without accountable reasons. The circular explicitly asks schools to establish clear governance, from collection and storage mechanisms, limited use, granting exceptions, to the return of gadgets to students. When a school asks students to hand over their gadgets, the school also takes responsibility for the security of those devices.
The exemplary role of the teacher is no less important. It is difficult to ask students to put down their gadgets if the teacher is busy reading messages while teaching. Children learn not only from the rules posted on the wall, but also from the behaviour of the adults around them. A teacher is not merely a gadget supervisor. A teacher is a guide who helps students understand when technology is needed, for what purpose it is used, and when it should be put aside. Digital wisdom cannot be sufficiently taught through advice; it must be demonstrated in daily practice.
Families also cannot hand over the entire issue to the school. This circular introduces the 3S principle: screen time, screen zone, and screen break. Parents need to regulate the duration of screen use, designate places for gadget use, and establish habits of taking breaks from digital devices. School only manages a portion of a child’s time. Digital habits are largely shaped at home. Restrictions at school will lose their power if, after school, children return to being immersed in screens without limits and without guidance.
Ultimately, children will grow up in an increasingly digital world. Education cannot possibly distance them entirely from technology. The task of education is to help them use technology without being controlled by it. The Ministerial Circular Number 18 of 2026 will be meaningful if it does not stop at being a mere circular.