MUSCAT: With schools closed down due to COVID-19 pandemic and students shifted to e-learning, the authorities and experts warn that parents should watch out for cyber mischiefs.
Although no cases have come to light so far, chances of bullying are not ruled out.
“Parents and teachers should watch out for children on the online platforms. They should ensure that their wards do not engage in any kind of harmful activities including bullying,” said an official at the Telecom Regulatory Authority.
According to him, both educators and parents should monitor the online activities to protect them from cyber bullying, as well as from blackmail and other forms of online abuse.
Echoing the same view, Dr Hassan Mirza, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital said use of technology in teaching has become a necessity amid COVID-19 rather than a choice. The use of social media as part of distance learning has its pros and cons as well. These groups create a rich and interactive learning environment, and make it easy for teachers and students to collaborate and connect with each other.”
On the flipside, social media groups can distract students and disrupt studies. “Cyber bullying is a serious risk when it comes to social media. Studies have shown that online bullying is prevalent among school and college students, and can lead to serious mental health difficulties,” he said.
However, students must be taught that they should not retaliate or bully back, inform the teacher and parents.
“If these groups are created by children then parents must supervise these groups. Similarly, groups by adolescents and high school children should preferably have a teacher as an admin, and since online teaching is the norm during the pandemic, school should take the initiative and create such groups and supervise them, rather than students creating them randomly, which increase the risk of online bullying”, he suggested.
The parents themselves need to set a good example of how to use social media responsibly so that children learn the right way, he said.
Dr Baby Sam Samuel, Chairman of Board of Directors of Indian Schools in Oman, said that most of the tools used in remote learning for students, like the video conferencing applications, online learning management modules etc are supervised by teachers.
“Even where WhatsApp groups have been created to communicate with students, these are usually through parents. As such in these media we have not observed any online bullying,” he said.
However, Dr Sam said, “there could be many students-only informal groups created on social media such as Facebook and WhatsApp. But we are not aware of any untoward incidents of bullying on such platforms too.”
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