A popular learning programme in public and private schools to counter violence, addiction, bullying and other complex subjects is now using comic strips in classrooms to put across their message to thousands of students as part of a new initiative.
It aims to impart innovative learning to connect with tech-savvy students and address important topics and challenges facing those students.
It is part of the Interior Ministry’s Maan (Together) programme that covers public schools, where students attend classes led by a trained community policeman or policewoman.
It works within the approach of the US-based Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E. International) programme that seeks to prevent drug use, gang membership and violent behaviour among school students.
Since the inception of Maan in 2011, more than190 out of 211 public schools have been covered, with a yearly average of around 120,000 students from kindergarten, primary, intermediate and secondary school ages.
“We want to connect with students from different age groups through innovative formats such as using comics to highlights bullying, smoking, cybersecurity and other challenging and complex subjects in classroom,” Maan programme director Ali Ameeni told the GDN.
“Our trained team of community policeman and policewomen have shared these comics – English and Arabic related to phishing – during their weekly classes, and have received a good response from the students.
“For example, the first edition of the comic has characters of a family where both the father or mother talk to their son, Salem, and daughter, Noura, about cybersecurity, not sharing personal information for an online game and not to fall prey to popular phishing tactics such as using fraudulent e-mails, pages and sites that are designed to collect personal or bank information.”
Phishing is one of the oldest and most flexible types of social engineering attacks; they are used in many ways, and for different purposes, to lure unwary users to the site and trick them into entering personal information.
The latter often includes financial credentials such as bank account passwords or payment card details, or login details for social media accounts.
In the wrong hands, this opens doors to various malicious operations, such as money being stolen or corporate networks being compromised; this makes phishing a popular initial infection method.
Mr Al Ameeni added their plan is to expand the comics by focusing on different subjects currently covered under the Maan programme such as bullying, smoking, violence, fire or road safety and other key areas.
He said future plans will include disseminating the comics via WhatsApp to parents and other groups as they step up their animations game by working on the new format.
“We can eventually develop a character such as a friendly neighbourhood policeman that will share these stories, and this design will connect well with the students,” he added.
“Another area that we are exploring is using artificial intelligence to create characters based on the custom content that we can conceptualise with our team.”
He explained a scenario of online fraudsters targeting a student to share personal information or photographs, but the student remembers what he was taught in the school by the community policeman – including the comics which colourfully illustrates how to deal with this situation.
“We have tentatively titled the comic – Maan, after the name of our programme, and eventually to release future editions by next academic year (in September) covering different topics.
“Our future plan is to using virtual reality as an important education tool, but that will require intensive planning.”
The GDN reported that a three-year study covered more than 3,800 students in 20 public schools across the country helped young minds be more tolerant and say no to extremism.
As part of the programme a special curriculum for peaceful coexistence and combating extremism was taught in 20 public schools (intermediate and secondary) as part of a sample group covering 3,830 students over a period of three years.
Interior Minister General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa last year attended a ceremony hosted by D.A.R.E. marking its 40th anniversary during which the curriculum for peaceful coexistence and combating extremism was launched within the framework of the existing Maan programme.
The minister said they launched the programme to combat violence and extremism adding that it had helped reduce child misbehaviour in schools by 56 per cent since its inception in 2011.
D.A.R.E was launched in 1983 and is the largest K-12 prevention education programme in the world taught in thousands of schools.
l For more information about the Maan programme, contact 17750597.
sandy@gdnmedia.bh
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