Textbooks to have lesson on ills of tobacco use
If all goes well, high school students will soon read about the harmful effects of smoking and chewing tobacco. Tobacco Free Karnataka (TFK), a group of doctors and NGO members, has sent a proposal to the primary and secondary education department about including material to create awareness in this regard in the textbooks for class six to 10, when the curriculum is due for renewal.
Students usually pick up the smoking habit in high school and TFK has proposed a curriculum to the Department of State Education Research and Training (DSERT) to be incorporated in textbooks.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister Visveshwara Hegde Kageri has reportedly given an oral approval for incorporating information about the ill-effects of tobacco with pictorials in the textbooks. Kageri told Deccan Herald that he was aware of the proposal to incorporate tobacco-related information in textbooks.
“Use of tobacco is injurious to one’s health and it is very important to educate students about it. The textbook preparation committee will take a call on this,” he said.
The matter will be made available in the textbooks for English, Kannada, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi mediums.
Tobacco Free B’lore
Dr Vishal Rao, consultant oncologist – head and neck surgeon, Fortis Hospital and convener of Tobacco Free Bangalore, said it makes a difference if school students are educated about the harmful effects of tobacco from the beginning.
“I see so many young people suffering from tobacco-related cancer and it is very unfortunate that we have to conduct surgeries on them. High school is the right time to intervene as that is the age when students normally develop the habit,” he said.
Harmful effects
DSERT has finalised a set of points about the harmful effects of tobacco on a person’s health, including impotency among men and infertility among women and hypertension.
Hairfall due to tobacco chewing, wrinkles on the face and marks on the teeth and fingers are among the other harmful effects. Growing tobacco is also said to result in drylands as the plant absorbs moisture in the soil.
However, DSERT has not confirmed if the information will indeed be published in the textbooks, as there is a proposal to print the National Anthem and the Nada Geethe (State Anthem) on the pages proposed for it. An official from DSERT said that the education department was yet to confirm the matter.
