Across Canada, provinces have introduced rules on student phone use in K-12 classrooms, responding to rising concerns about digital distraction, mental health, and declining classroom focus. Explore how student phone use is regulated across Canada with our searchable tool and find out what policies are in place in your province or school board.
Grades evaluate official provincial policy frameworks and directives. They do not account for local school board implementation. Feedback from our provincial roundtables suggests that operational and enforcement challenges are a persistent concern for educators across jurisdictions.
The Northwest Territories and Nunavut are graded as “N/A” because there are currently no comparable territory-wide personal device policies that can be assessed against the scorecard criteria. Local education bodies or districts maintain authority over device use policies, meaning that approaches may vary between communities. Yukon is evaluated in the scorecard because it introduced a territory-wide Personal Mobile Device Use in Schools policy beginning in the 2026–27 school year.
In 2024, all provinces in Canada introduced some form of personal device restriction policies in schools. This comparative provincial policy map was developed using publicly available information from policy announcements, directives, and related documents released by provincial education ministries. While the details vary, the policy rationale across most provinces is similar: to reduce distractions and improve student focus, foster positive peer interactions, address negative social interactions in schools, improve academic achievement, and mitigate social media–related harms such as cyberbullying.
The map compares provincial policies on several key aspects, including how devices are defined, the scope of restrictions, whether stakeholder consultations were conducted or recommended for school boards, the enforcement guidelines provided, and links to relevant policy documents. Notably, no province has introduced or signaled plans for tracking and evaluating how these policies are implemented. While some provinces outline consequences for infractions and a few indicate that devices can remain with students, most leave the specific enforcement approach — particularly regarding storage arrangements — to local school authorities.