Kochi: The cyber world is expanding with each passing day and the information and entertainment it provides has become so voluminous that the new generation needed to be guided on several aspects about it. There are opportunities as well as pitfalls. Identifying this, the Ernakulam District Administration is joining hands with IT major Tata Consultancy Limited (TCS) to digitally empower school students and guide them against falling into the pitfalls in the world of internet. Former IT Mission Director and the current Ernakulam District Collector K Muhammed Y Safirulla is the brain behind the first of its kind project in the country titled e-jagratha of district administration joining hands with an IT major in schools. A total of 101 government higher secondary schools have been selected to implement the project in the four educational districts of Ernakulam, Aluva, Kothamangalam and Moovattupuzha in the first phase.
A student and teacher from each school are being selected to undergo training in this regard at the TCS facility. They will become master trainers for the rest of the students in each school. The students are being selected from Class VIII and IX. “The initiative aims at establishing basic IT infrastructure and internet connectivity in schools and empowering students on the use of internet apart from preventing them falling prey to its lures and becoming subjects of abuse. First of all they should be taught the different uses of internet in daily life including e-bill payments and ordering a product. They can be taught which the authentic websites are for information and can be introduced to Wikipedia and the way to get best search results also. These are among the empowering aspects. Then they can help their parents and simplify daily life. There are several other aspects to this,” said Muhammed Safirulla.
Mr Safirulla said that quality improvement on the digital platform is one aspect of the project while reminding students about their duties and responsibilities in the cyber world. “Preventing students from falling prey to lures and rackets online is one purpose of it. Another aim is to make them aware of the need for responsible use of the social media platforms like facebook and WhatsApp. Making one’s profile and posting the photo of Shah Rukh Khan as profile picture is not appropriate while posting one’s own photos has its own risks. Students should identify this and other aspects and learn the etiquettes. Teaching them about the IT Act basics is also part of the initiative,” said Mr Safirulla.
He said that in the second phase parents will be rolled into the programme by involving Parent-Teacher Associations. “The aided schools and CBSE schools are to be considered in the next phases of the project,” he said. The IT@School initiative of the Kerala Government which is already involved in several kinds of such projects in state schools is also being involved in the project. The programme is set to be launched this weekend.
Smart phones are not toys
The policeman and the psychiatrist are the two experts who are forced to deal with the issue related to crimes and abuses in the cyber space involving students. While the former says that there very marginal happenings being reported, the latter says that the abuse is going up. “Only one or two crimes have been registered so far in the only cyber police station in the state. This may be because parents and schools deal with such things at their end or don’t come forward to register cases but the rate must be very low,” said Cyber police station DySP Rakesh Kumar.
On the other hand the child psychiatrist at the behavioural pediatrics unit of SAT Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, Dr R Jayaprakash said that pornographic abuse is the most prevalent one on the cyber space involving school students. “This has become more prevalent after the arrival of the smart phones. Parents are struggling to deal with children who demand a smart phone for themselves. In recent times I am confronting girls who become almost porn addicts and land in trauma and fail in school exams,” says Dr Jayaprakash.
Many parents on the other hand are not aware of the misuse that is happening involving their children who are school students. “This happens in the case of both parents working. The act of students viewing porn clips as a group in school is also increasing,” he said. “Another area where the cyber space becomes villain is when students who use social media make emotional relationship with strangers and thus land the family in a difficult situation. These all land at the doorsteps of the psychiatrist and psychologist rather than in police station,” Dr Jayaprakash said.
