The “Cybersecurity Educational Curricula” project, a program sponsored by the NCA in the State of Qatar, aims to raise awareness among children and adolescents in Qatar of concepts related to digital safety and cybersecurity. The curriculum is designed for students from first grade in primary school to third grade in secondary school.

The “Educational Cybersecurity Curricula” project, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, aims to achieve a number of objectives, most important of which is: educating society in general, children and adolescents in particular about the risks of the Internet, whilst training them on the basics of protecting personal data and maintaining the safety of electronic devices. In addition to raising their awareness of general concepts related to cybersecurity and digital safety, this project aims to equip a young generation of Qatari youth with dealing efficiently and safely with technological tools.

To meet the objectives of the NCA in protecting society from the risks of the Internet, maintain security and privacy of data, in addition to achieving a better level of awareness among society about cybersecurity, the project uses a number of educational tools. These include visual products, educational videos and posters and infographic designs that are used for training, as well as a guide for teachers.

The educational curriculum at this stage considers the demographic and psychological characteristics of children, such as being very young age and their lack of experience. In line with children’s’ cognitive abilities for this stage, the focus will be on engaging videos and visual products that captivate their interest. The curricula address basic cybersecurity topics such as ways to protect electronic devices, refraining from sharing personal information with strangers and creating strong passwords. These topics become more expanded and comprehensive as the children’s’ ages progress. In order to enhance the attractiveness of the materials offered, and their ability to effectively influence children, the curricula introduces lovely cartoon characters inspired by the Qatari environment, such as a cute robot character, to provide information to children through educational films, posters and infographic designs, in a way that makes children take these characters as their friends, from whom they derive valuable information and knowledge that they are looking for in the field of cybersecurity.

 

In the curricula for preparatory school students, educational content will be developed in line with the expansion of the child’s perceptions, knowledge and ability of absorption, analysis and comprehension. The educational content at this stage is complementary to the content in the primary stage and is based on information related to computing and information technology, how to deal with social networking sites, websites and other relevant information. In this stage of the curriculum, new, age-appropriate characters will be introduced and created to give the films an air of fun and to increase suspense and attraction in them.

 

In this stage, topics related to cloud computing, the basics of file protection, information about electronic attacks, threats and phishing, and other relevant information is introduced in an age-appropriate way which considers the children’s and adolescents’ capability in solving complex problems.

 

In order for the National Agency for Cyber security to have the greatest impact possible on the community that is the focus of the project, educational materials were targeted at students enrolled in literacy programs and parallel education courses. In this case, students in literacy programs and parallel education alike can benefit from the same content thanks to the use of the same curricula for all stages.

 

Content has been allocated for mentally and physically challenged people, proportionate to their cognitive abilities, to qualify them and enable them to safely use the Internet and modern electronic devices, taking into account the variety of special needs of these people. This is similar to the content that is intended for students of various age groups. In order to ensure the promotion of the concepts of digital citizenship and the consolidation of cyber security, cyber security educational curricula are directed to all groups and segments of society without exception. They also aim to raise a comprehensive level of awareness within the local community. The platform is being authorized for digital access in compliance with international standards to enable the right of physically and mentally individuals to independently access information.

 

In light of the fact that achieving the objectives of the program necessitates the assistance of the educational staff, we have provided you, our revered teachers, with this guide, which contains tools to support your perseverance and sincere efforts as well as to enrich your work. As a result, this guide was produced, which contains directive training materials for educational staff in Qatar’s public and private schools. Throughout the various educational stages, it is believed that the educational staff has a direct and intimate relationship with children and adolescents. Training and qualifying them helps in creating a teaching environment that can efficiently and effectively deliver educational content to students. As a result, a guide for the various educational stages for the teaching staff was developed on the basis of this proposition.

 

Qualifying and training parents on how to deal with modern technological tools and raising their level of awareness of the concepts of cyber security and digital safety constitute direct support for the project’s efforts in building a digitally secure society. The presence of qualified parents regarding the safe use of technology will reflect positively on their children’s environment as a whole, and therefore on Qatari society in all its segments.