New Zealand’s conservative Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced on Friday a ban on mobile phones in the country’s schools, a move aimed at combating declining literacy rates, AFP and Agerpres reported.

A few years ago, New Zealand schools had some of the best literacy results in the world, but young people’s reading and writing skills have fallen so far that some researchers are talking about an education “crisis”.

“We will ban phones in schools across New Zealand. We want our children to learn and we want our teachers to teach,” said the prime minister, who took office this week.

Christopher Luxon has announced that he will ban mobile phones in schools within his first 100 days in office, adopting a policy already tried in the US, UK and France.

The goal of the move is to end disruptive behavior and encourage students to focus, he said.

Last year, researchers at the New Zealand Education Center warned of a “literacy crisis” after finding that more than a third of 15-year-olds could barely read and write.

Christopher Luxon’s Conservative government has quelled controversy since its first week in office by lifting a widespread smoking ban, a measure introduced by the previous government