Guru.lk launches course to teach parents to ‘police’ the internet

A unique online course to help parents improve their understanding of the internet and learn how to make its use ‘child safe’ in their homes, has been launched in Sri Lanka by Guru.lk in response to the ever increasing dangers lurking on the world wide web.

Aptly titled ‘Parenting IT’ the course, accessible via computers or smartphones, is a combination of lessons on how to navigate and set a computer’s privacy settings to protect children, and a wider discourse on understanding the social, psychological and physical dangers that unsupervised surfing of the internet can pose to children.

Costing just Rs. 199 a month or a discounted Rs. 1,500 for a year, the course is categorised according to three child age groups, and is to be expanded into an evolving knowledge-sharing forum within three to four months to enable concerned parents to interact with one another as well as with the course experts, the company said.

The topics covered by the technical modules of the course range from adjusting privacy settings, evaluating IT security products and installing virus guards to an introduction to the role and services of the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Sri Lanka CERT), while other modules offer advice from leading child psychologists and behavioural experts on the importance of appropriate levels of protection for children using the Internet, and its existing and potential dangers to children. Legal experts also provide inputs on the legal and regulatory aspects of internet use.

Commenting on this latest product on www.guru.lk, Asanga Vitharana Director of Headstart Ltd. the owner of the site said: “It gives us great satisfaction to be in a position to address a timely social issue. Parenting IT is a product which we feel can help reduce intentional or inadvertent misuse of the Internet amongst children, by educating their parents. Children being the county’s future, guiding and preventing them from unwanted social elements is a much felt need.”

‘Parenting IT’ can be subscribed to by visiting the Guru.lk website. Dialog subscribers can activate the course via their mobiles by sending a text to 445 with PIT as the message, while Mobitel subscribers should text PIT to 477. Subscribers visiting www.guru.lk can pay via a credit card or can make annual payments via bank deposits using the bank details provided on the website.

Guru.lk is the pioneering edutainment website in Sri Lanka. The website has more than 100 E Learning courses ranging from courses linked to the school curriculum to professional education, and edutainment content including IT courses, beauty culture and even cooking and singing. Users have access to all these courses with the use of a desktop computer, tablet or a smart phone.

The owning company Headstart powers many E Learning initiates of telecom companies, private sector and Government initiatives including the guru schools program where content is provided free of charge for school IT labs.