VIEWS & OPINION
What more could IT departments be doing to protect students from cyberbullying?
Comment by MOSHE ELIAS,
director of products at Allot Communications
Preparing students for an increasingly globalised world
Comment by
DR. PETER FIDCZUK, UK Recognition and Development Manager, International Baccalaureate
While the ongoing cyberbullying epidemic doesn’t look like it’s going away, there is a wealth of advice for teachers looking to uncover and stop unhealthy interactions on the school premises. However, vigilance and promoting positive relationships amongst pupils isn’t proving to be successful in protecting pupils from being targeted.
A recent survey conducted by the Cyberbullying Research Centre suggested 34 per cent of students said they’d been cyberbullied once in their lives. Four out of five cyberbullied students said mean comments were posted about them online, while 70 per cent mentioned online rumour-based cyberbullying.
Social media giants are under increasing pressure to reveal the scale of online hate amongst young people. At the beginning of October this year, the UK government’s culture secretary, Karen Bradley, unveiled a new ‘internet safety strategy’ to ensure web firms face up to their responsibilities on trolling and cyberbullying. A key part of this strategy will compel companies such as Twitter and to publish how many complaints they get each year about online abuse – and what proportion of abusive messages they take down.
But it’s not just these well-known platforms which are a hot bed for bullying. The technological landscape has changed, making it easier than ever for perpetrators to remain hidden using anonymised messaging apps such as Sarahah, which often operate under the radar of many school IT departments.
In this context, what more could IT departments in schools be doing to protect students from cyberbullying? In essence, identifying applications and websites at the network level which could be used for malicious intent by school bullies is crucial in winning the battle against cyberbullying. The remedy: Security services delivered by the service provider If a security as a service solution is deployed by the school’s internet service provider, IT managers can establish network policies to prevent access to inappropriate material and stop its spread, as well as policing (or preventing) the use of frequently abused messaging applications.
In a similar manner to web controls delivered by the service provider which are targeted at parents, a network-based solution enables network operators to determine what is safe for their users to access using various content- filtering techniques that identify, classify and control access in real-time. For members of the school community using the internet, different access levels can be set according to different individual user profiles, for example for staff, teaching assistants and students. It’s important to provide this security service on both fixed and WiFi networks.
While this example refers to the school’s local LAN network, an Asian educational ministry deploys such a solution centrally which protects institutions nationwide, as well as being used in universities as far afield as the USA and Japan. As a result, these organisations have traffic visibility, management and control to create the safest network environment for students, teaching staff and administration alike.
November 2017
According to research findings published in the 12th annual University Admissions Officers Report, UK university admissions officers rate the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) as “exceptionally different, and better than A Levels”. This is particularly significant as the UK heads into a period of increasing uncertainty due to Brexit, the impact of which has already resulted in declining admissions to UK universities (applications from EU students are five percent down this year) and which will undoubtedly impact UK students’ decisions about, and ability to consider, studying abroad.
The research, conducted by ACS International Schools and the IB Schools and Colleges Association of the UK and Ireland (IBSCA), shows that the DP ranks highest among admissions officers for developing a wide range of qualities considered essential to university success, including a global outlook, open mindedness, self- management skills and independent inquiry.
Over 80 percent of university admissions officers surveyed in both the UK and US say that different school exam systems develop different attitudes towards learning and work among students. Over half of leading universities in the UK believe that the DP is uniquely able to equip students with the skills they need to thrive at university and in the global workplace of the future.
Conversely, almost half of university admissions officers in the UK feel that students aren’t sufficiently prepared for a successful transition from school to university. In particular, UK admissions officers say that new students are not able to think and learn independently (89 percent), they are unable to manage their own time or workloads (88 percent), they have poor social skills or feel unable to engage with others (74 percent) and have a lack of common sense life skills (72 percent). These are all key skills prized by global employers and which are incorporated into the DP students’ programmes of study. There are some marked differences between what UK and US universities admissions officers say affects first year success. In the UK, 70 percent of university admissions officers say that students can fail to thrive in their first year due to ‘not appreciating what their course will involve’. In the US, the equivalent figure is just 15 percent. The University Admissions Officers Report suggests that this may be because in the US university courses follow a ‘liberal arts approach’ - in the UK, however, degree study is highly subject focused from the outset.
As they attempt to address these challenges, 65 percent of UK universities now have transitional programmes in place to help students make the leap from school to university life and study, and a further seven percent are developing them. The report would suggest that IB students are less in need of such support as they possess the requisite skills for successful transition.
160,000 DP students across the world received their results in July 2017 and, according to the research, these are the students that university admissions officers consider best prepared for success at university.
Illustrated by the findings in the University Admissions Officers Report, UK students need to gain a distinct and competitive advantage in an increasingly globalised world by following a curriculum that develops an internationally recognised skillset which is valued by universities at home and abroad, such as the IB.
www.education-today.co.uk 25
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