CBSE issues guidelines over Blue Whale scare

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has directed its schools to deploy digital surveillance system to ensure safe and secure internet use by the students.

The advisory comes in the wake of the ‘Blue Whale Challenge’ online game triggering a panic among parents across the country.

Suggesting a host of other measures in a recent circular, it also instructed the schools to make students “explicitly” aware of the rules for an acceptable use of the internet and display them “prominently” on the school campus.

“Make children using the internet to work in highly visible areas of the school. Supervise and monitor all online activities in the light of educational objectives. Make aware the teachers and other school staff about internet safety norms. Sensitise the parents,” the CBSE sought.

It also directed the schools to “avoid” digital and video images of individual students or the teachers on their websites for safety of children.

Several cases of suicide in India have been linked to the ‘Blue Whale Challenge’, triggering a nationwide concern over the safety of children even as probe into these cases was yet to conclude.

The Centre has asked all the state police departments to remain alert and take appropriate action, according to sources.

“Schools need to promote a safe and secure educational environment for effective teaching and learning and to discourage students from actions detrimental to themselves, their peers and the value system,” the board’s additional director Biswajit Saha said.

The board issued its directive to all schools on safe and effective use of the internet and digital technologies on their campuses and the school buses on August 18. More than 18,000 schools are affiliated to the CBSE across the country.

“Install effective firewalls, filtering and monitoring software mechanisms in all the computers and regularly review filtering and blocking policies and procedures. Various types of unsolicited contents available on internet must be blocked. Configure end-user computer devices with parental control filters/antivirus of appropriate standard,” the CBSE directed.