Google and NCERT (The National Council of Educational Research and Training) are coming together to integrate a course on ‘Digital Citizenship and Safety’ in information and technology curriculum subscribed by the schools.

In the light of increasing use of social media and cyber threats, this is a relevant addition to the course. The Internet is a phenomenal resource that has made everything easy, but it comes with its own risk. ‘Internet can help us; it has a potential of damaging the social structure and an individual. It is imperative for us to understand how can we keep ourselves safe,’ Union School Education Secretary Anil Swarup said, reported firstpost .

The course designed by NCERT and Google will be for the students from class I - XII and taught across 1.4 million institutes in the country. The course aims to prepare students on how to be responsible digital citizens. Teachers will be trained on the latest developments on the debates surrounding the Internet. The module will have four themes - being smart, being safe, being a digital citizen and being future ready.

Sunita Mohanty, Google India Director, Trust and Safety added 'We have provided NCERT (a) lot of content that was ready with Google, tools and tips about internet use. We also segregated the curriculum into four different area. We have a different set of programmes for different age groups.’ Students will be able to identify good and bad content. In more advanced classes, the curriculum will focus on privacy, device management, intellectual property and reputation management. Google will do the training free of cost.