Quit Facebook, Kovai schools tell students

Coimbatore: With cyber abuse and bullying by students on the rise in Coimbatore, several schools in the city have asked students to quit Facebook and other social networking sites.

Posting abusive messages against teachers, school mates, obscene videos and pictures on Facebook and other social networking sites are increasing among the students, says cyber crime expert S N Ravichandran. “Though children upto 13 years of age are barred from social networking sites, many primary school children in Coimbatore spend many precious hours on Facebook”, he points out.

Several pro-active schools are now sending out advisories and warnings to their students to keep off Facebook. The Vivekalaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School on the Trichy road here has sent a letter a week ago to the parents to ensure that their children are off Facebook.

“We have urged parents to help their children to shun social networking sites. We want to protect our children from cyber bullying and cyber crimes,” Aishwarya Rao, Director of Vivekalaya told DC.

The Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association (TPSA) president R Visalakshi urged the parents to lock the internet when they are away. “Students of Class VII and VIII are using Facebook and it is better Facebook account is banned for under-aged children,” she insisted.

But teachers and parents realise that it is not easy to coax children out of social networking sites. A Class XI girl, addicted to Facebook, turned “very aggressive” recently when she was asked to close her account.”She had to be counselled and deaddicted from Facebook,” says Visalakshi.

Some schools have just issued cautious advisories. Stanes School has counselled the children on the inherent dangers of using Facebook and let them take a call. “When we tell the children, ‘do not use it, they will be tempted to give a try and say, ‘why not? So, we let the children decide”, says the school principal Llewlyn Xavier. Some schools are asking the students to share their Facebook account password with their parents to ensure transparency.

Says R Gowri, Principal, Sindhi Vidyalaya Matriculation Higher Seco­ndary, Vela­ndipalayam, Coimbatore, “We do not encourage students to use Facebook. We have asked the children to make their passwords transparent so that the parents know and can access them.”