THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : After training around 20 lakh school students to identify fake news and misinformation on social media, the state education department has made it a part of the revised school curriculum. It has now been included in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) textbooks for Classes V and VII.
The pioneering initiative assumes significance as the UK has decided to include similar portions in its national curriculum following recent incidents of unrest fuelled by misinformation on social media.
“The new ICT textbook includes chapters that equip students to identify fake news and malicious content,” said K Anvar Sadath, CEO, Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE), the technology arm of the state general education department.
The department has also decided to incorporate the latest developments in the field when the ICT textbooks for Classes VI, VIII, IX and X will be revised next year.
The new curriculum not only teaches students to identify fake news and verify its authenticity, but the chapter titled ‘Let’s Search the Internet’ in the Class V textbook also covers how to effectively manage screen time. Similarly, the Class VII ICT textbook’s chapter titled ‘Let’s Search and Find’ elaborates on the importance of verifying the authenticity of information and explains why spreading or sharing false information is a crime.
Furthermore, the ICT textbook also includes precautions to be taken before sharing information with others, the need to educate those who provide such information of the potential consequences and the concept of copyright.
Meanwhile, for the first time in the country, 4 lakh students have been given the opportunity to learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI) through the Class VII ICT textbook. Textbooks are available in Malayalam, English, Kannada and Tamil media at www.samagra.kite.kerala.gov.in.
19.72 lakh students get fake news prevention and awareness training
In the run-up to the introduction of fake news detection in curriculum, the KITE had in 2022 organised a fake news prevention and awareness creation training for 19.72 lakh students of Classes V to X as part of the Digital Media Literacy programme. For the first time in the country such a massive training was given to 9.48 lakh upper primary and 10.24 high school students with the help of 5,920 trainers.
The 2.5-hour training titled ‘Satyameva Jayathe’ focused on four sections -- use of internet in day-to-day life, social media requires us, rights and wrongs in social media and how to prevent spread of fake news. False information shared through digital media, its negative impact on society and verifying the authenticity of information were discussed during the training through various ‘case studies’.
The training also focused on areas such as understanding influence of digital media in information transaction, creating urge towards knowing non-factual interference in digital media and how to react to them in a constructive manner, acquiring technical knowledge in understanding the truth behind transacted messages, developing skills to identify and reacting to glitches in information transaction through media literacy.
In 2023, it was included as a module in Little KITES IT clubs that has around one lakh student members, and also in various digital literacy initiatives for students. Work on including it in the curriculum began in 2023 itself, and the next year, it reached students in the form of ICT texts.
On guard
New curriculum teaches students to identify fake news and verify its authenticity
The chapter titled ‘Let’s Search the Internet’ in Class V textbook also covers how to effectively manage screen time
Class VII chapter ‘Let’s Search and Find’ elaborates on importance of verify-ing authenticity of info and explains why spreading false info is a crime.