More than 150 clinicians have written to ministers warning of a “crisis” in children’s physical and developmental health linked to screen-based learning.
In an open letter to Education Secretary Lucy Powell and Health Secretary Yvette Cooper, the clinicians – including GPs, ophthalmologists, audiologists, paediatricians and speech and language therapists – describe the absence of any child-focused health scrutiny of “EdTech” as “a serious safeguarding concern” for both departments.
The letter says that around £900 million a year is spent on “EdTech” in English schools, and no product is required to show that it is safe for children’s physical health before a school buys it.
The clinicians go on to warn: “No drug, food product or toy is given to millions of children without a single safety check. Yet, astonishingly, EdTech devices and platforms currently used by millions of pupils in schools and for homework every day of the week face no equivalent child-focused health scrutiny.”
Almost one million children spend nearly every lesson on screens, and many now spend longer on screens in the classroom than they are recommended to spend in a day, according to analysis cited by the clinicians.
In the UK, the proportion of short-sighted children has more than doubled since the 1960s, the clinicians say.
The letter also warns that a three-year-old spending three hours a day on screens misses an estimated 194 conversational turns and 1,139 adult words daily.
More than two million UK children are now struggling with speech and language, and around a third of children start school not ready to learn, according to the clinicians.
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