Noida Schools Directed To Cap Screen Time At 30 Minutes For Primary 60 Minutes For Upper Primary

Schools across Noida and Greater Noida have been directed to limit students’ screen exposure during smart-class teaching to 30 minutes a day for Classes 1 to 5 and 60 minutes for Classes 6 to 8, following complaints from parents that some students were spending four to five hours a day in front of digital boards.

The Gautam Budh Nagar district administration has also asked government, semi-government and private schools to restrict the use of smart and digital boards and continue using conventional blackboards, greenboards and whiteboards.

The directions were issued through a circular after parents’ associations raised concerns about the impact of prolonged screen exposure on students’ physical and mental health. The administration said schools were also failing to ensure appropriate viewing distances during smart-class lessons.

“It has also been brought to notice that in several schools, traditional blackboards/greenboards/whiteboards are not being used adequately,” the circular said. Continuous screen exposure could increase the risk of myopia, reduced concentration, eye strain, headaches and other physical and behavioural problems, it added.

District magistrate Medha Roopam said digital boards should be used as teaching aids rather than as a replacement for classroom interaction. “While smart and digital boards are aids to make teaching more effective, their continuous and unnecessary use must not adversely affect students’ health, studies, sports, or other activities,” she said. The administration has emphasised interactive and participatory teaching methods instead of continuously displaying textbooks on digital screens, she added.

The guidelines call for screen use to be balanced according to age and refer to recommendations issued by organisations including the World Health Organization, Indian Psychiatric Society, Indian Academy of Pediatrics and NCERT.

Neha Sharma, CBSE city coordinator, welcomed the move. She said children’s learning could suffer when education was reduced to passive screen viewing. “Holistic development cannot happen if learning is limited to passive screen viewing,” she said, adding that activities such as storytelling and drawing encouraged children to engage more actively with lessons and helped improve retention.

Sharma said smart boards could still be useful when used appropriately. Schools should make use of features such as brightness and backlight adjustments to reduce eye strain, she said.

However, some parents questioned the blanket limits. Yatendar Kasana, president of the All Noida School Parents Association, said smart classes had become an important teaching tool and that digital boards were different from mobile phone screens. “Smart classes are a popular tool now. It is a proper board and quite big, so I don’t think it causes too much stress to the eyes. Mobile screens can cause stress,” he said.

Kasana also said schools and parents should have been consulted before the guidelines were issued. “They should have called a meeting with the parents to discuss this issue first, instead of releasing this order,” he said.