STUDENTS here, among the most wired in the world, will soon get lessons in school that will help them navigate cyberspace safely and watch out for dangers like cyber-predators.
Counsellors are also being trained to help students who develop Internet-related problems like gaming addiction.
Starting this year, such a package will be incorporated in the Ministry of Education's revamped Civics and Moral Education syllabus.
This 'cyber-wellness and Internet safety' programme, said an MOE spokesman, will first be run at the Primary 1 and 2 and Secondary 1 and 2 levels this year.
It will be extended to the other primary and secondary levels over the next two years.
Students will get lessons on getting the most from the Internet - safely. Issues will include the proper and responsible use of the Internet, and appropriate responses to situations encountered online.
Older students will also role-play various scenarios to reinforce the lessons learned.
For students with Internet-related problems, like online-gaming addiction, the MOE is training full-time school counsellors to help students deal with such problems. It expects to eventually have counsellors in every school here.
According to a 2006 Infocomm Development Authority survey, 90 per cent of youths aged 10 to 14 are avid users of the Internet.
But the Internet has its dark side too, and problems are beginning to crop up among the young.
Last year, for instance, the Institute of Mental Health admitted 12 youngsters with gaming addiction problems. Five years ago, there was just one case.
Last month, a 17-year-old game addict was sentenced to 18 months' probation after he repeatedly used his neighbours' wireless networks illegally to play games after his parents locked up the home modem in a last-ditch bid to control his addiction.
Youngsters are also falling prey to predators in cyberspace. In recent years, there have been several cases of men being jailed for having sex with underage girls they met online.
The National Internet Advisory Council had mooted an education-system-wide cyber-wellness initiative last year for similar reasons: giving youngsters the knowledge to recognise and deal with the dangers, so they can make the most of the Internet.
That call, and the MOE's announcement, was welcomed yesterday by volunteer welfare organisation (VWO) Fei Yue Community Services, which has a youth arm counselling troubled youth.
Its own findings, from a cyber-wellness study on 1,200 secondary school students, found students lacking in the 'soft' skills of cyber-wellness like differentiating between right and wrong, legal and illegal, on the Internet, said Fei Yue senior social worker Helen Sim.
A programme like the MOE's, she said, would go a long way towards fixing the problem of a tech-savvy but not quite cyberspace-smart population here.
Currently, schools conduct their own workshops or hire VWOs like Touch Community Services to conduct cyber-wellness programmes.
Ms Sim suggested that the MOE bring in VWOs to make the lessons more compelling, especially where rebellious teenagers are concerned.
She felt VWOs would be able to identify 'people who were previously addicted to gaming' and get them to talk about how their addiction to games affected them.
The testimony of such individuals would be well-received, as they had first-hand experience.
Parents unfamiliar with computers or the Internet, like hawker assistant L.K. Goh, welcomed the idea of schools teaching such lessons.
Mrs Goh, 36, told The Straits Times that her two sons, aged 12 and 14, were always telling her that they were using the computer to study. But she suspected they were playing games or doing other 'boliao' - Hokkien slang for meaningless and time-wasting - things.
No other country seems to have a programme similar to the MOE's, although Canada and Britain have extensive, well-funded volunteer programmes that work closely with schools.
