The Kerala General Education Department has come up with an innovative approach to enable students recognise fake news.
The government has added modules to ICT textbooks for Classes 5 and 7, designed to help students understand the difference between ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’.
Students will be made to learn how to do fact-checking using online platforms.
A senior official noted on Monday that this initiative was implemented in Kerala even before the UK introduced a similar programme.
In 2022, Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE), the technology arm of the department headed by CEO K Anvar Sadath, had imparted training on fake news prevention and awareness creation for 19.72 lakh students of Grade 5 to 10, as part of the Digital Media Literacy programme, he said.
In the wake of some news reports that the UK is planning to revise its primary curriculum by including this topic as well, Sadath on Monday spoke of the details of Kerala's programme.
It was the first time in India that such massive training was given to 9.48 lakh upper primary students and 10.24 lakh high school students with the help of 5,920 trainers, he said in a statement.
The 2.5 hours of training, titled ‘Satyameva Jayathe’, focused on four sections, which included the use of the internet in day-to-day life, rights and wrongs of social media and how to prevent the spread of fake news.
Awareness about false information shared through digital media, the negative impact it creates on society and the verification of authenticity of information was made a part of the training using various case studies, he said.
The students were also taught the meaning and definition of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’, how non-factual information and misinterpretation of facts is spread on social media, and what social impact facts presented in an emotional language and authenticity of information have, he said.
“The new ICT textbook includes chapters that equip students to identify fake news and malicious content, embodying the spirit of Satyameva Jayate. Next year, when the ICT textbooks for Classes 6, 8, 9, and 10 are revised, it will be incorporated with the latest developments in the field,” he added.
In the ICT textbook for Class 7, for the first time in the country, four lakh students have been given the opportunity to learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sadath added.
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