MoE Hosts Conference on Cyber Security

For the past two days, the Ministry of Education has been hosting a conference on Cyber Security. The awareness workshop opened dialogue with principals of secondary schools, IT teachers, parents, board members, primary and secondary school counselors as well as students about virtual hazards. Cyber security is essentially the policies that individuals and in this case youths can follow to ensure that their rights and privacies are not violated when they are on the internet. Collin Estrada of the Ministry of Education’s School Counseling and Care Unit says the workshop discusses “the role of education in cyber security—developing digital citizenship.”

Collin Estrada

Collin Estrada, Coordinator of School Counseling and Care Unit, MOE

“We dealt with the principals of the secondary schools to be able to have and get their opinions on what are the policies that they have in their schools in terms of cyber security. What we are doing today is that we are furthering that conversation with parents and students so that we are able to also understand what is it that students know about cyber security, what parents know about cyber security. At the end of it all, what the ministry plans to do is to be able to get policies in place so that we are able to have a platform for cyber security. It is an issue that our children are not just confronting each other at school, but they are confronting each other on the internet. And so one of the major reasons for this is that the conversation is live and is burning within the ministry and that’s why the ministry decided to be able to have this two-day conversation so that we are able to bring up policies to address the situation. We cannot be like the ostrich in the sand whereby everything is happening and we are not dealing with it head on and so the ministry has decided to take the proactive approach in dealing with it. Administrators will take the necessary steps in terms of their computer systems and the platforms that they have in terms of strengthening their security. In terms of yesterday, some of the principals were talking about ongoing training for the IT professionals so that they are able to strengthen the system.”