How to ban porn access in schools? CBSE says jammers not an option

A month after the Centre told Supreme Court that it may install jammers in schools to prevent students from accessing adult sites, the CBSE on Friday said that it won't be possible to do so.

The Central Board of Secondary Education says that the jammers, if installed, would also block access to the internet-based educational programmes run by many schools.

Instead, the educational board has issued set of guidelines for schools to prevent access to child pornography.

The guidelines which have been prepared after consultation with cyber safety experts are aimed at protecting children from cyber bullying and preventing them from accessing pornographic content.  

“Schools need to promote a safe and secure educational environment for effective teaching and learning and to discourage students from actions detrimental to themselves, their peers and the value system. Schools are, thus, advised to take measures to pre-empt any inappropriate and illegal activity through IT enabled devices in schools,” the circular sent by CBSE to all schools on Friday said.

The board wants schools to educate students for the safe and effective use of the internet, install effective firewalls, filtering and monitoring software mechanisms in all the computers and regularly review filtering and blocking policies and procedures.   

The CBSE circular also said that student can't carry iPads, smart phones and other devices with unfiltered internet connection without permission from school authorities.