Education authorities in north China's Hebei Province have upheld a decision made by a local high school to expel 12 of its pupils for breaking the rules on the use of cellphones.
The Cangzhou No. 1 High School said on its website yesterday that following an investigation last week, the ruling would be unchanged.
The Beijing News ran a report earlier this month saying that 12 pupils had been caught using their handsets after a ban was introduced on February 29.
The school had formerly allowed pupils to have cellphones after coming to a deal with China Unicom, which offered to provide customized handsets that could be used to make calls only during specified hours and were unable to connect to the Internet, the report said.
However, when school officials discovered last November that the phones could be used at will, and provided access to the Internet, they issued a request for them not to be used. When that failed to deter the youngsters, they upgraded the request to a total ban.
Several parents of the excluded children tried to negotiate with the school, but their appeals fell on deaf ears.
They then appealed to the Cangzhou Education Bureau, which launched an investigation but found in favor of the school, the report said.
