Sources : Times News Network

Date of Publishing:1/8/2010

Location:Bangalore

Bangalore: This 17-year-old boy is rather different from his friends and classmates. While most kids his age are freaking out on social networking sites like Facebook or Orkut, he's rather wary of the dangers lurking within them. Now, he’s developing a curriculum on cyber security with the help of Infosys which will be taught in his school first, and later perhaps in all CBSE schools.

Shourya Saluja, a Class 12 student of Indus International School here, is devising a curriculum For Classes IX to XII which will create awareness about cyber safety.

Its three components will focus on different safety issues of social networking sites. "Children disclose too much information in their profiles, they upload photos and accept random people as friends just to increase the number in their friends' list. They don’t know what dangers this can lead to," said Shourya.

They will also be taught how to protect themselves from dangers like phishing messages, things to look after in a Local Area Network (LAN), internal security, etc. Cyber ethics to be part of course

Bangalore: Shourya Saluja, a Class 12 student of Indus International School here, who has devised a school curriculum which will help students understand the security implications of social networking sites.

Cyber ethics will be another subject in which they'll be taught how to be a good cyber citizen. They'll will be shown real-time instances of misuse of these sites.

Infosys will leverage its "subject matter expertise" to develop the content as part of its corporate social responsibility initiative. The content will be ready in a few weeks' time. Not only will they create the substance, but also train teachers who will teach students and, if required, train students themselves.Shourya plans to rate the success of his programme after six months and then seek the Central Board of Secondary Education's approval to include it in the curriculum. He says he got the idea when his 10-year-old sister asked him to create a Facebook profile with all her information. "I realized that many children are ignorant about the consequences of this," he said.

He approached the Punjab College of Engineering which has a cyber security research centre. "When I suggested teaching cyber safety in high school, they gave me the thumbs up. I did a three-week internship there, conducted surveys, did research and presented papers on the gap between the present curriculum and proved the need for this course."

In June second week, Shourya presented a paper to Infosys and convinced it to help him in the course content.

PRINCIPALSPEAK

We'll introduce the subject as part of value education once our school reopens in August. In this age, we cannot restrain a child from using social networking sites. But, we can always tell her how to do it safely. Classes will be just not lectures, but we’ll have workshops and activities where we'll show real-time incidents so that students understand the gravity of the situation. Classes will be held during and after school hours, and maybe even during holidays. Sarojini Rao | PRINCIPAL, INDUS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

Children disclose too much information in their profiles, upload photos and accept random people as friends just to increase the number in their friends' list. They don't know what dangers this can lead to. They will also be taught how to protect themselves from dangers like phishing messages. — Shourya Saluja

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