Awareness about Child Rights among the Secondary School Children of Mangalore City

Child rights are essential for protecting children’s safety, dignity, and healthy development. Adolescence is a stage of life during which awareness has strong influence on attitudes and behaviour. School plays an important role in imparting knowledge about child rights to students, but studies have shown that despite the presence of legal provisions, there is limited understating among children about their rights. In support of this concern, Bhattacharya (2018) pointed out that although India has strong child protection laws, many children are not fully aware of their rights and often realises them only after experiencing violations. In this context, the present study analyses the extent of awareness about child rights among secondary school students in Mangalore city. The study employed a Descriptive Research design and utilised a semi structured questionnaire to collect data from100 students, who were selected from both government and private schools. The result indicates that most students were aware of child rights, but there was difference in the depth of understanding among them. This finding is also similar to Chowdhary (2019) who observed that awareness exists at a basic level, but deeper knowledge regarding legal provisions and structured guidance remains limited. Well-established awareness about child rights was observed in female students and students in higher classes. On the other hand, some misunderstandings were found, particularly regarding the legal definition of a child. The result indicates the requirement to strengthen child rights education through a regular classroom where there will be active teacher guidance which helps students to develop a more accurate understanding.