Photography education relies on smartphones not just as cameras, but as editing suites, visual journals, communication tools, and cultural gateways. In some institutions, especially in further education or community settings, they may be the only photographic device students can access. Their removal, if applied without context or exception, threatens to narrow the curriculum, marginalise disadvantaged students, and reduce photography to a technical exercise devoid of cultural, ethical, and contemporary relevance.

If we, as APHE, exist to defend and champion photographic education, then silence is not an option. We need to decide how we show up for our members when they are being pulled apart by competing pressures. Do we organise? Do we lobby? Do we create spaces that refuse the metrics and reclaim the conversation?