Children’s online safety starts in the classroom
A school that teaches technology without discussing honesty, respect, self-control and responsibility leaves education unfinished, writes Barbara Kaija
Barbara Kaija. (File)
_____________
OPINION
Imagine a teacher in a secondary school asking learners to explain what makes a good friend. The answers come quickly: someone trustworthy, kind, honest and willing to help.
Then the teacher asks whether the same qualities matter when choosing friends online. The discussion changes. Some learners have accepted friendship requests from people they have never met. Others have received messages from strangers claiming to know their classmates. A few have seen humiliating photographs circulating in WhatsApp groups.
The children may know how to operate their phones, yet they still need help understanding the relationships and responsibilities that come with them.
This article looks at where children learn their online habits, what can go wrong, how to respond and what schools can do.
Learning beyond school gate
Uganda’s 2020 Children’s Online Survey, conducted by the Uganda Communications Commission before the COVID-19 school closures, found that 87% of internet using children went online at home compared with 27% at school. Many were building digital habits outside structured instruction.
The survey also found that while 81% of children said they knew how to use the internet, only 37% found it easy to check whether information online was true and just 27% found it easy to judge whether a website could be trusted. Although these figures are not current national data, they show how technical confidence can outrun judgement.
A learner may navigate social media easily yet struggle to spot a fraudulent scholarship advertisement, a manipulated photograph or a false identity. With artificial intelligence making convincing images, voices and messages easier to create, critical thinking and discernment have become essential digital skills.
Bullying
Teasing and exclusion are nothing new in schools. What has changed is that humiliation now travels beyond the classroom and continues long after the bell.
Consider a learner whose classmates secretly record an embarrassing moment. By evening the video is in several WhatsApp groups. The child dreads returning to school, while the teacher notices slipping concentration without knowing why.
The Digital Rights Alliance Africa’s 2025 report cites Ugandan research indicating that cyberbullying affected about 20% of child internet users and cyberstalking 33%. UNICEF Innocenti’s 2025 research found that online bullying and sexual abuse were among those most strongly linked to poorer mental health.
The task is not to diagnose. It is to notice, check in privately and kindly, and keep
watching.
When a child tells you
The first few minutes matter most. Listen calmly and let the child speak in their own words. Say that it is not their fault and that telling you was right. Do not promise to keep it secret; explain that you must involve someone whose job is to keep them safe.
Write down the facts the same day: what the child said, when it happened and what you observed. Report promptly to the school’s designated teacher or head teacher, who should refer it to child protection services.
The Sauti Child Helpline, 116, is toll-free and can advise on next steps. Follow up with the child so they know they have not been forgotten.
Resist the urge to investigate and do not question other learners or confront the suspected abuser or parents on your own.
Never forward or copy a harmful image or message, even to report it; note where it was seen and let the designated teacher or child protection officials advise. Avoid asking why the child accepted a request or trusted a stranger.
Teaching character
Responding well is only half the task: prevention starts with the values children learn long before they pick up a phone.
Traditional African education was never confined to acquiring information. Children learnt through stories, observation, work, relationships and the correction of elders. Knowledge was expected to shape conduct.
A school that teaches technology without discussing honesty, respect, self-control and responsibility leaves education unfinished.
A class debate can ask whether forwarding an embarrassing photograph is acceptable because someone else shared it first.
A simple habit helps everywhere: before forwarding anything, ask whether it is true, whether it is kind and whether it could hurt someone.
What schools can do
Some steps need no budget:
-Name a trusted teacher or counsellor to whom learners can report concerns confidentially, and tell every learner who it is.
-Write a one-page reporting procedure so every staff member knows whom to tell and what to record.
-Train all teachers, not only ICT specialists.
-Start age-appropriate lessons on privacy, kindness, consent and misinformation in primary school.
-Offer a suggestion box so children can raise worries without being singled out
-Invite parents to a short talk at a school meeting on warning signs and reporting.
Lesson worth remembering
The teacher’s question helped learners connect values they knew with choices they make online daily. When a child brings a difficult online experience to school, the response of one teacher may decide whether that child finds help or retreats into silence. The best digital classroom is one where knowledge grows alongside character, judgement and care.
For God and My Country.
The writer is an educationist, a media communication specialist and the Chairperson of the Board for the Emerging Leaders Programme; Kaijabarbara@gmail.com WhatsApp: 0708746624