The massive surge in the adoption of online learning has democratized quality education for students across India. According to UNICEF, globally 1 in 3 children are using the internet. Both the vulnerability and safety of children who are consuming online content are an immediate reality to contend with. Therefore, online safety has become an immediate concern for everyone and there is a growing consensus that EdTech companies align to safety ‘norms’ and declare themselves as “Child Safe”.
Space2Grow a social impact consulting firm working in the area of Women and Child Safety and Vedantu, a player in LIVE online learning, have launched the Online Child Safety Benchmarking Framework, proposing internal standards of benchmarking for edtech firms and other institutions in the e-learning space, ensuring that their services to all stakeholders, especially children, are safe and standardized.
This report was unveiled at the panel discussion entitled “Investment in Online Safety Children: Need of the Hour” hosted by Space2Grow and panelists included Priyank Kanoongo (Chairperson, NCPCR) & Rajnish Kumar (Director, Digital Education, Ministry of Education.), Sameer Desai (Founder, Kreedana, Game Responsibly), Dr Eesha Sharma (Asst. Prof Dept of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, NIMHANS, Anju Wal (Principal, Shiv Nadar School), and Pulkit Jain (Co-Founder, Vedantu Innovations). The roundtable was moderated by Chitra Iyer (Founder, Space2Grow) and focused various closely related topics like the existing gaps and that prevent effective safeguarding, sector specific best practices for ensuring children’s safety, and industry specific solutions.
Priyank Kanoongo, Chairman, NCPCR, said, “Online safety of children is extremely important, and with children’s access to Internet, this becomes a significant point. We do need standards of safety and compliance within industry and institutions that provide platforms for education, learning and gaming and other relevant platforms.”
“There is growing need for standardised regulations and advisory for Edtech, Gaming, Schools – to make “safety” the front and centre of a child’s learning process. This report and the framework it proposes, offer a ready to use mechanism for various key stakeholders – Ed-tech, learning institutions, regulatory bodies, and many others – to adopt a child safety matrix to their work areas. Maybe as their USP” said Chitra Iyer, Founder, Space2Grow
Commenting on the report, Pulkit Jain, Co-founder & Head of New Initiatives, Vedantu said, “We are humbled to partner with Space2Grow to create awareness on child safety and provide best practices for the EdTech industry. The report provides us a holistic picture on creating international benchmarks for safer online learning spaces. Ensuring child safety as a firm wide commitment, every Edtech platform should incorporate safety rules and regulations for a child to mitigate uncomfortable online situations. As a “Child Safety First” brand, Vedantu is committed to provide a safe learning environment for every child with zero tolerance towards unsavory practices that makes a child uncomfortable while attending any online learning session.”
About The Child Safety Benchmarking Report:
The proposed framework has four major indicators for internal assessment of EdTech companies and includes factors such as:
- Accountability – This is focused on the responsibility and accountability the organization undertakes for child protection with commitment from the senior-level management
- Reporting and Redressal – It evaluates the presence of the structure of reporting and redressal for the child abuse cases and the service level agreement around those cases
- Privacy & Data handling – This assesses the process around the handling of personal information, the responsiveness of the information owners, and the ease to access personal information
- Digital risks and harms – This focus on the presence of relevant infrastructure to minimize the risk of cyberbullying, cyber abuse on the online platforms and how responsive the platform is in taking an action
The report further focuses on integrating child rights across all levels of an organization and creating interventions to make online child safety a necessity across platforms.
Also read: Keep your child safe online- Here’s how
Posted in Corporate, News
