NCERT books to educate students on ‘good and bad’ touch

The inner side of the back cover of all NCERT books will have certain guidelines in easily comprehensible language. (Representational image)

While school and state boards have started sending guidelines to schools to ensure students safety in the backdrop of the murder of a seven-year-old student, the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) has said all its books from the next session will carry a list of dos to deal with cases on child abuse.

The books will also contain some important helpline numbers, brief about the POCSO Act and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).

Through this initiative, the NCERT wants the students to recognise the difference between ‘good touch’ and ‘bad touch’ and look up to their books to know what they should do if they face abuse. NCERT Director Hrushikesh Senapathy said the Ministry of Child and Women Development had approached them with the suggestion and “we have accepted it”.

Teachers do make an effort to educate students to differentiate between ‘good and bad touch’, but they, as well as parents, are often clueless about what to do in such situations and where to report such cases, he said. “So from the next session, the inner side of the back cover of all NCERT books will have certain guidelines in easily comprehensible language. It will also have certain illustrations about good touch and bad touch,” he said. There will be a brief about the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and NCPCR, he added.

This move comes at a time when parents were concern about their child’s security in the wake of the killing of a seven-year-old boy in a Gurgaon school and the rape of a five-year-old girl by a school peon in Delhi.