Online Safety Curriculum for learners and parents
13 May 2020
The Western Cape Education Department is working with Google to provide individual lessons for high school learners and parents on online safety.
The WCED partnered with Google to develop an Online Safety curriculum that seeks to teach learners the fundamentals of digital safety. This curriculum was piloted last year so that areas for development could be identified.
The pilot identified a number of successes and challenges, and was used to revise the curriculum before rolling out the lessons as part of the Life Orientation curriculum.
Western Cape Education Minister, Debbie Schäfer, said in a media statement that the lockdown has made the delivery of the Online Safety Curriculum even more important as children are spending much of their time on the internet and social media – both for learning and for entertainment.
Ismail Teladia, Senior Curriculum Planner: Life Orientation/Life Skills, said a set of specific lessons will be made available to learners and parents while everyone is still at home.
“The lessons will include YouTube videos for both learners and parents for better understanding the implications of actions on social media. The lessons will be grade specific and the first set of lessons will be available on the e-Portal by the end of this week.”
Learners and parents can also visit the cyber wellness page on the WCED website, which has workbooks, documents and advice on topics such as safe cell phone use, and tools to prevent cyber bullying: https://wcedonline.westerncape.gov.za/elearning/elearning-cyber-wellness