Online manual aids teachers protect kids from cyber-bullying, porn

MANILA — The Department of Education (DepEd) and a nongovernment organization advocating child safety launched on Wednesday a manual that would guide teachers on how they could better help children protect themselves from cyberbullying and being preyed upon by unscrupulous individuals.

The CyberSafe online safety manual, developed by a seven-member team from DepEd and Stairway Foundation Inc., gives tips to teachers on how they can better inform children as young as 10 years old on the risks associated with the Internet, such as cyberbullying, sexting and child pornography.

According to Education Secretary Armin Luistro, this initiative is an important step for DepEd, especially at a time when Filipinos remain a “little backward” in understanding the Internet’s risks despite the growing appreciation of what it can do to aid learning.

“We can’t and should not prevent the use of technology just because there are risks. It is our duty to ensure that those risks are identified, that we know and anticipate how our young people will be able to address them,” Luistro said on Wednesday.

In a survey conducted by Stairway Foundation Inc. last year, the group’s executive director Lars Jorgensen said that in the country, nine out of 10 children were found using the Internet. It also found that six out of 10 children have seen pornographic links through social media.

Jorgensen noted that particularly alarming was that half of the 1,268 children aged 7-12 and 1,143 teens aged 13-16 from the National Capital Region, Cavite, Batangas, Bacolod, Cebu and Zamboanga Sibugay that they surveyed said that “no one has talked to them about the risks and dangers online.”

While the DepEd has not gathered concrete data on how risky the cyberspace has become for Filipino students, Luistro said cyberbullying could cause a child to lose interest in school and worse, lead him to commit suicide.

Luistro said that lessons and activities in the manual, which would be made available to teachers through the DepEd’s learning portal, would be integrated in existing subjects such as Values Education and Computer.

It would teach students from Grade 5 to Grade 10 various topics, such as the essentials of ensuring account privacy, understanding how cyberbullying works and the effects of online gambling, through interactive group activities.  SFM