CHENNAI: Teachers of some of the top schools in the city are being entrusted with new duties that are different from their routine. With more and more school kids joining social networking sites, schools are asking their teachers to also join those networks, often with fake names, to monitor the activities of their students. Many students in city schools have been pulled up so far by school authorities for passing comments about their teachers, school and girls in the class. A few schools have also issued a diktat against students becoming members of social networking sites following such incidents.The modus operandi goes thus: The teacher, usually the PT or Yoga master, creates a profile with a fake name and adds as many students of the school as possible. This gives them a chance to access the accounts and posts of all the children.In a popular school in Anna Nagar, three students of Class IX were suspended in 2010 for criticising their school on a social networking site and for posting the picture of their principal and passing distasteful comments. “When rumors about this reached the teachers, our PT master created a fake profile and shot off friend requests to all our classmates. While most of the students refused to add him due to unknown identity, one of them befriended him which led to the students being caught red handed for posting pictures and comments,” says a student of that school.According to many children studying in this school, several students have been awarded a yellow card — something like a warning given to students and their parents — for chatting with classmates of opposite gender for long durations on Facebook or other sites. “School counselors keep warning us against joining Facebook and chatting with girls of our class on the Internet,” says another 11th class student of this school.In another interesting incident in a school at Chetpet, the teachers and authorities were woken up to the perils of social networking only after the parents alerted them. A Class XII girl had posted her pictures wearing a saree after a farewell party on which 11th standard boys passed lewd comments. She then complained to her father. The parent noted down the names of those students and complained to the principal. Apparently, the principal needed coaching from the computer teacher to understand what the issue was about.Social networking sites, according to Reita John, vice principal of SBOA Matriculation, is one of the major distractions and sources of threat for students. “While social networking is a great way to be in touch, students are not mature enough to strike a balance between studies and such activities. Moreover, interactions between boys and girls on such sites sometimes go beyond admissible levels— the prime reason for schools to police children’s Internet habits,” she says. “The worst part is that most parents are not aware of such issues. So, we organise monthly meetings to create awareness amongst them.”The fears and rationale behind monitoring students are not unfound. McAfee, a leading antivirus software brand, conducted a study on the online behavior of kids in many cities across India, including Chennai, in July. As per the study, close to 64 per cent of kids surveyed between the ages of 9 and 12 years were members of some social networking site and close to 53 per cent had shared their personal information, including house address, online.
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