Fury over doctor's book on sex education for Muslims
By Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Islamabad
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12117519
|
Showing posts with label sex education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex education. Show all posts
January 12, 2011
July 02, 2009
Homophobia unites moral police from all religio-political lobies
[The 2 July 2009 judgement by the Delhi high court is a great victory for human rights; but all secular forces must be beware that all the major religious and conservative forces will unite to block and oppose the full legalisation of homosexuality in India. So lets us firmly fight them back on a secular platform. See the real colours of the Maulanas, and clergymen of all stripes. See reports and excerpts from the press posted below. hk]
o o o
The Hindu, July 2, 2009 : 2015 Hrs
Legalising homosexuality will lead to sexual anarchy: church
Kochi (PTI): Expressing reservation over the Delhi High court judgement legalising homosexuality, the Catholic Church in Kerala on Thursday said this would 'open up' the society to 'sexual anarchy'.
"Though Homosexual act is immoral, we should be merciful, considerate to people with homosexual tendencies. However, that does not mean they have the right to the homosexual act," the Catholic Church spokesperson Paul Thelekat said.
"Legalising gay sex will open up the society to some sort of sexual anarchy. Perhaps Indian culture is being eroded by the western promiscuous culture," he said.
The Church would work with every sensitive person and community to keep the moral fabric of the society intact, he said.
o o o
Times of India
Govt resolve to act on Section 377 hits Deoband hurdle
30 June 2009
NEW DELHI: Islamic seminary Deoband's condemnation on Monday of moves to repeal Section 377 of IPC to legalise same sex liaisons -- by calling it
a wish of an "ungodly few" -- set off fears that conservative religious opinion could dilute the resolve of the government to "decriminalise homosexuality".
The seminary, reacting to statements from government circles that there was a case for scratching Section 377, called it a "contemptible move likely to corrupt the gullible in society". The strong criticism may well increase the wariness that has marked the reactions of ministers after initially signalling a preparedness to legalise homosexuality.
While there was a strong reaction from Muslim clerics in general, their stand was bolstered by Deoband with deputy V-C of Darul-Uloom, Mufti Mohammad Abdul Khalik Madrasi, warning, "Homosexuality is an offence under Shariat law and haram (prohibited) in Islam."
Two days after reactions from Union ministers raised hope among groups working for its repeal, the mood was one of caution and the ruling Congress itself made it clear that it had no particular views on the matter. The apprehensions are largely on account of conservative opinion from religious quarters, which can have a social resonance and are seen to have a political impact as well.
What may make withdrawal of Section 377 a challenge are hints of convergence across religious barriers against the move. Mohammad Arshad Farukhi from the fatwa department of Darul-Uloom said, "A joint forum of Hindus, Muslims and Christians must be set up to check the government from making the offending legislation."
It has tempered the aggression in government. Law minister Veerappa Moily assured that a wide debate on the issue would take care of reservations of Christian groups. "The government cannot take a decision in a hurry. We need to apply our mind," he said in Hyderabad, adding, "We are examining it."
Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was as non-committal. "I can simply say there should be more debate -- public debate, Parliament debate. There has to be a consensus. The negative and positive has to be evaluated and then a conclusion should be evolved," he said.
Azad favoured a debate in Parliament, saying, "There should be a total consensus. Not only government, but other political parties should also be in line with it (amendment)."
As the two key ministers advocated debate and consensus, Congress refused to take sides on the issue. "This is under consideration of the government. It is a normal government process. The party does not have any opinion on it," party spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said in response to queries about the party's stand on repealing Section 377.
o o o
Excerpt from PTI report in Herald
http://oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=23802&cid=2
"While Rt Rev Abraham Mar Paulos Episcopa, head of Marthoma Syrian Church of Malabar diocesan, said homosexuality is not at all acceptable and agreeable as it is against the tenets of Bible.
According to Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, repeal of the section would create “sexual anarchy” in the society.
VHP said homosexuality is against the culture and family system in India and will result in spread of number of diseases."
o o o
Excerpt from report in Times TV
http://www.timesnow.tv/Political-divide-over-legality-deepens/articleshow/4321162.cms
"Kamal Farooqui, Member, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, speaking against the judgement said, "This judgement is just to please our western and american friends. In Indian socieity this is not accceptable whether Muslim or Hindu. Basically we are a religious society. Our temperament is that homosexual act is an unnatural act."
Amar singh, General Secretary, Samajwadi Party, also speaking against the high court order said that the party does not support homosexuality or sexual relations between the same sex."
Menawhile, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Islamic scholar, said, "As far as the practice of homosexuality is concerned, I think that is completely wrong."
Acharya Giriraj Kishore, VHP Leader, not in favour of the judgement said that the high court order is unfortunate and that it would destroy the society."
o o o
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Religious-leaders-disapprove-HC-judgement-on-homosexuality/484077
Indian Express
Religious leaders disapprove HC judgement on homosexuality
Posted: Thursday , Jul 02, 2009 at 1326 hrs IST New Delhi:
Certain religious leaders on Thursday strongly disapproved of the Delhi High Court judgement which legalised gay sex among consenting adults. "This is absolutely wrong to legalise homosexuality. We will not accept any such law," Jama Masjid Imam Ahmed Bukhari said. He also critcised the government for trying to amend the Indian Penal Code to scrap section 377 that criminalizes homosexuality. "If the government makes such attempt to scrap the Section 377, we will oppose it strongly," Bukhari said.
All India Muslim Personal Law Board member Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahli said homosexuality is not allowed by any religion. "It is against all religions. It is against the culture of Indian society. We feel there is no need to legalise homosexuality. This practice is unnatural. It should continue as a criminal act," he said. Father Dominic Immanuel said that churches have no objection to decriminalisation of homosexuality but it should not be legalised. "We have no objection to decriminalisation of homosexuality because we do not consider these people as criminals on par with other criminals," Immanuel said.
However, churches do not approve of homosexual relations as ethical and moral right of the people, he said. "It is against nature.Our position is that homosexuality should not be legalised," he said, adding such practice will increase paedophilia and HIV/AIDS. The court said Section 377 of the IPC as far as it criminalises gay sex among consenting adults is violation of fundamental rights.
o o o
The Hindu, July 2, 2009 : 2015 Hrs
Legalising homosexuality will lead to sexual anarchy: church
Kochi (PTI): Expressing reservation over the Delhi High court judgement legalising homosexuality, the Catholic Church in Kerala on Thursday said this would 'open up' the society to 'sexual anarchy'.
"Though Homosexual act is immoral, we should be merciful, considerate to people with homosexual tendencies. However, that does not mean they have the right to the homosexual act," the Catholic Church spokesperson Paul Thelekat said.
"Legalising gay sex will open up the society to some sort of sexual anarchy. Perhaps Indian culture is being eroded by the western promiscuous culture," he said.
The Church would work with every sensitive person and community to keep the moral fabric of the society intact, he said.
o o o
Times of India
Govt resolve to act on Section 377 hits Deoband hurdle
30 June 2009
NEW DELHI: Islamic seminary Deoband's condemnation on Monday of moves to repeal Section 377 of IPC to legalise same sex liaisons -- by calling it
a wish of an "ungodly few" -- set off fears that conservative religious opinion could dilute the resolve of the government to "decriminalise homosexuality".
The seminary, reacting to statements from government circles that there was a case for scratching Section 377, called it a "contemptible move likely to corrupt the gullible in society". The strong criticism may well increase the wariness that has marked the reactions of ministers after initially signalling a preparedness to legalise homosexuality.
While there was a strong reaction from Muslim clerics in general, their stand was bolstered by Deoband with deputy V-C of Darul-Uloom, Mufti Mohammad Abdul Khalik Madrasi, warning, "Homosexuality is an offence under Shariat law and haram (prohibited) in Islam."
Two days after reactions from Union ministers raised hope among groups working for its repeal, the mood was one of caution and the ruling Congress itself made it clear that it had no particular views on the matter. The apprehensions are largely on account of conservative opinion from religious quarters, which can have a social resonance and are seen to have a political impact as well.
What may make withdrawal of Section 377 a challenge are hints of convergence across religious barriers against the move. Mohammad Arshad Farukhi from the fatwa department of Darul-Uloom said, "A joint forum of Hindus, Muslims and Christians must be set up to check the government from making the offending legislation."
It has tempered the aggression in government. Law minister Veerappa Moily assured that a wide debate on the issue would take care of reservations of Christian groups. "The government cannot take a decision in a hurry. We need to apply our mind," he said in Hyderabad, adding, "We are examining it."
Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was as non-committal. "I can simply say there should be more debate -- public debate, Parliament debate. There has to be a consensus. The negative and positive has to be evaluated and then a conclusion should be evolved," he said.
Azad favoured a debate in Parliament, saying, "There should be a total consensus. Not only government, but other political parties should also be in line with it (amendment)."
As the two key ministers advocated debate and consensus, Congress refused to take sides on the issue. "This is under consideration of the government. It is a normal government process. The party does not have any opinion on it," party spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said in response to queries about the party's stand on repealing Section 377.
o o o
Excerpt from PTI report in Herald
http://oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=23802&cid=2
"While Rt Rev Abraham Mar Paulos Episcopa, head of Marthoma Syrian Church of Malabar diocesan, said homosexuality is not at all acceptable and agreeable as it is against the tenets of Bible.
According to Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, repeal of the section would create “sexual anarchy” in the society.
VHP said homosexuality is against the culture and family system in India and will result in spread of number of diseases."
o o o
Excerpt from report in Times TV
http://www.timesnow.tv/Political-divide-over-legality-deepens/articleshow/4321162.cms
"Kamal Farooqui, Member, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, speaking against the judgement said, "This judgement is just to please our western and american friends. In Indian socieity this is not accceptable whether Muslim or Hindu. Basically we are a religious society. Our temperament is that homosexual act is an unnatural act."
Amar singh, General Secretary, Samajwadi Party, also speaking against the high court order said that the party does not support homosexuality or sexual relations between the same sex."
Menawhile, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Islamic scholar, said, "As far as the practice of homosexuality is concerned, I think that is completely wrong."
Acharya Giriraj Kishore, VHP Leader, not in favour of the judgement said that the high court order is unfortunate and that it would destroy the society."
o o o
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Religious-leaders-disapprove-HC-judgement-on-homosexuality/484077
Indian Express
Religious leaders disapprove HC judgement on homosexuality
Posted: Thursday , Jul 02, 2009 at 1326 hrs IST New Delhi:
Certain religious leaders on Thursday strongly disapproved of the Delhi High Court judgement which legalised gay sex among consenting adults. "This is absolutely wrong to legalise homosexuality. We will not accept any such law," Jama Masjid Imam Ahmed Bukhari said. He also critcised the government for trying to amend the Indian Penal Code to scrap section 377 that criminalizes homosexuality. "If the government makes such attempt to scrap the Section 377, we will oppose it strongly," Bukhari said.
All India Muslim Personal Law Board member Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahli said homosexuality is not allowed by any religion. "It is against all religions. It is against the culture of Indian society. We feel there is no need to legalise homosexuality. This practice is unnatural. It should continue as a criminal act," he said. Father Dominic Immanuel said that churches have no objection to decriminalisation of homosexuality but it should not be legalised. "We have no objection to decriminalisation of homosexuality because we do not consider these people as criminals on par with other criminals," Immanuel said.
However, churches do not approve of homosexual relations as ethical and moral right of the people, he said. "It is against nature.Our position is that homosexuality should not be legalised," he said, adding such practice will increase paedophilia and HIV/AIDS. The court said Section 377 of the IPC as far as it criminalises gay sex among consenting adults is violation of fundamental rights.
May 20, 2009
Rajya Sabha Committee sees 'Indian Culture' Threatened by Sex Education
Frontline
May. 23-Jun. 05, 2009
EDUCATION
Shades of saffron
by T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
The Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions sees a threat to Indian culture from the Adolescence Education Programme and rejects it.
[Photo]
Rajya Sabha members Thanga Tamil Selvan, M. Venkaiah Naidu, Maya Singh and Nandi Yellaiah meet the press after a discussion with parents in Chennai on the introduction of the Adolescence Education Programme in schools. A 2007 picture.
A PROGRAMME designed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) to impart adolescence education to children aged 14 and above in schools has run into trouble following an adverse report by the Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions. The committee, headed by M. Venkaiah Naidu of the Bharatiya Janata Party, stated in its 135th report that the Adolescence Education Programme (AEP) launched in 2005, was “a cleverly used euphemism whose real objective was to impart sex education to schoolchildren and promote promiscuity”. It also disapproved of the importance given to the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) in the AEP.
The 10-member committee was reconstituted three times – in 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 – with Venkaiah Naidu continuing as chairperson. Its members in 2008-09 were Vijay Darda, Dharam Pal Sabarwal and Ram Chandra Khuntia of the Congress, Maya Singh of the BJP, Subhash Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, N.R. Govindarajar of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Sabir Ali of the Lok Janshakti Party, Shyamal Chakravarty of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Virendra Bhatia of the Samajwadi Party.
The committee has imbued the report with its own interpretation of culture through sweeping generalisations of what an adolescence education programme for schoolchildren should contain. In the process, what could have emerged as a gender perspective on adolescence education has been reduced to a litany of criticism on what is culturally appropriate.
The committee’s report has come at a time when a review is under way and several State governments, who had been told that culturally specific modifications could be made according to their needs, have initiated the process in their curriculums and informed the petitions committee of the same at the State-level deliberations.
It is also not clear whether the committee’s report reflects the sentiments of a cross section of people other than those represented by religious organisations, the Save Education Committee and student organisations such as the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
By the committee’s own admission, the Rajya Sabha secretariat wrote to all States and Union Territories seeking their views. Only 13 States/Union Territories sent in their views; the committee heard the views of six States when it visited them. A perusal of the responses from the States the committee visited showed that not all of them had rejected the AEP in toto. While Gujarat and Rajasthan rejected it outright, many others had only made changes to it.
Interestingly, the report states that the students the committee interviewed in government schools, as also teachers and parents, were receptive to the idea. But it also declares that of the 4,50,000 representations it received, the overwhelming majority was against the introduction of AEP in schools. It noted a “general sense of protest amongst the stakeholders” during its visits. However, this sense of protest is not reflected in the views of a few State government representatives, students, teachers and parents mentioned in the committee’s report.
The culturally loaded conclusions in the report give the impression that the committee was set up with the sole purpose of imposing on adolescent minds a certain value system rather than to address their problems. Incidentally, the committee was set up on the basis of petitions and representations primarily from the Shiksha Bachao Andolan, which claims to be a “forum of nationalist historians, intellectuals, teachers, students and their parents resolved to protect India’s education system from exploitation by the regressive influences of Marx, Macaulay and Madrassa (the Evil Three)”.
The committee apparently collected feedback on the AEP for almost one and a half years. It concluded, among other things, that there should be no “sex education in schools”; that “a message should be given to schoolchildren that there should be no sex before marriage, which is immoral, unethical and unhealthy”; that “the new curriculum should include appropriate material on the lives and teachings of our great saints, spiritual leaders, freedom fighters and national heroes so as to inculcate in children our national ideals and values, which would neutralise the impact of cultural invasion from various sources”; that the “school syllabi should cater to the needs and requirement of our society and culture; and that “our country’s social and culture ethos are such that sex education has absolutely no place in it”.
The committee also noted that “basic human instincts like food, fear, greed, coitus, etc., need not be taught, rather control of these instincts should be the subject of education. But present [sic] academic system incites stimulation of instincts, which is detrimental to the society. To focus ‘Indian education’ on instinct control should be the important objective and for that the dignity of restraint has to be well entrenched in education.”
A leading educationist pointed out that the first few pages of the BJP’s manifesto for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections read much the same as the committee’s conclusions on culture and education. “It looks like the former HRD Minister of the NDA regime has drafted it,” he said.
The committee has asked the HRD Ministry to consider its recommendations when it finalises the new syllabus on the basis of the revised curriculum submitted to it by the National Review Committee. It has further recommended that feedback be taken from State governments, Union Territories, parents, experts, teachers and the general public, and that the revised syllabus so prepared be placed before a Chief Ministers’ conference for a consensus.
The committee has said that pending finalisation of the new syllabus the Ministry should issue advisories to the respective authorities in the States and Union Territories to withdraw the existing AEP literature from all schools, be they State-run or affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). In fact, the committee has called for a national policy on the new curriculum.
Consensus at seminar
The committee criticised the HRD Ministry for allowing NACO to control the entire exercise instead of seeking a national consensus on the AEP. The Ministry said in its defence that the consensus to introduce the AEP in schools was evolved at a national seminar on adolescence education organised by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on April 12-13, 1993.
The seminar, it said, was attended by eminent educationists, psychologists, medical scientists, curriculum developers, teacher-educators, school principals and teachers, government officials and non-government representatives involved in imparting education on sex, family life, AIDS, health, population and drug abuse. There were specialists from universities, State councils of educational research and training (SCERT), the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), NACO, the Centre for Social Research, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and representatives from United Nations organisations.
The seminar recommended the introduction of adolescence education in the curricula at all stages of schooling. Subsequently, the NCERT developed the general framework of adolescence education, which included the following three components: the process of growing up, HIV/AIDS, and drug abuse.
The HRD Ministry said the report of the seminar, titled “Adolescent Education in School”, brought out by the NCERT and the National Curriculum Framework 2005 paved the way for framing the AEP. Additionally, it explained that the AEP was an initiative to upscale three educational programmes that were being implemented. The implementation of the AEP was preceded by eight national workshops, which led to State-level action plans. More national-level meetings followed, after which the AEP tool kit was designed and the field testing was done in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh.
In 1999, the NCERT brought out a publication on “Adolescence Education in Schools”, whose objective was to ensure that children had proper knowledge about their bodies so that they were not lured to wrong information through their peers or other informal sources of learning.
The AEP concept came into existence after an inter-ministerial meeting on HIV/AIDS on October 27, 2004, at the HRD Ministry, which was identified as the lead agency for the implementation of the programme with financial and technical support from NACO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). It is perhaps the involvement of several funding agencies for the programme and the agenda-setting by some of them that led to the AEP receiving more flak than it merited.
Coming down heavily on the Ministry, the committee said “it was shocking to note how so many agencies of the government could come together, conceptualise a syllabus, provide all kinds of justification to it, spend substantial amount of money in the printing of the material and then circulate it throughout the country with the avowed aim of providing scientific information and knowledge to the adolescents whereas the reality was that the AEP volumes were highly objectionable and bound to be rejected lock, stock and barrel”.
Perhaps the only valid ground on which the AEP could have been criticised was its link with the prevention and control of HIV and AIDS. There is no doubt about the need for a gender-sensitive programme on sex and sexuality for adolescents irrespective of the perceived challenges of HIV and AIDS.
As an educationist involved with school education in Delhi pointed out, perhaps some of the explicit graphics, conceived as a tool kit for teachers, could have been modified given the sensitivities of teachers, especially male teachers, towards girl students. Anil Sadgopal, formerly Dean, Education, University of Delhi, said a gender perspective would be the right approach to instil in students a healthy attitude towards each other on issues related to sexuality and dispel the fears in this regard. The gender dimension, he said, would have taken it beyond issues of sex and sexuality.
“I do not subscribe to the notion of Indian culture described by the committee. Indian culture has the highest understanding of sex and sexuality. Perhaps the committee hasn’t been to Khajuraho. Even Meera Bai’s expression of bhakti for Krishna is so sensual,” he told Frontline.
He also opposed the term “life-skills” as used in the AEP. He said that life-skills meant different things for children living in different socio-economic milieus. “For a child in Jharkhand, it may be about land rights; for an upper middle class child in Delhi, it may mean something different,” he said.
He recalled how a curriculum prepared with a gender perspective was tested in 36 government higher secondary schools in Chattarpur district of Madhya Pradesh. It looked at reproductive health issues and the patriarchal notions about them. “It was received very well by the teachers, who were mainly from upper castes, and the students too,” he said.
One of the petitions that the committee received – from Asha Sharma of Delhi and Pratibha Naitthani of Mumbai, along with Anusuiya Uikey, a BJP member of the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, who countersigned the petition – stated that “the material prepared for sex education… would promote promiscuity of the worst kind”. The main prayer of the petitioners was to put a hold on the introduction of sex education. Interestingly, the programme under attack does not use the term “sex education” in its title.
Preconceived notions
The petition, filed on May 17, 2007, said sex education would “corrupt Indian youth and lead to a collapse of the education system, transform student-teacher relations into that of a man and woman, lead to the creation of immoral society and growth in single-parent families”. The petitioners contended that it was an education to sell condoms.
On its part, the committee seems to have proceeded with preconceived notions right from the start. While collecting oral evidence from the petitioners it dissuaded them from making a powerpoint presentation on the grounds that its “explicit contents” would be “embarrassing to the lady members and other lady staff present”.
It was a striking coincidence that the petitioners and the witnesses examined by the committee held almost similar views on the subject. Further, the objections of the main petitioners and those voiced by the committee appeared to be the same. Both seem to be worried about the prospects of unbridled “promiscuity”.
One educationist quipped: “We did not become one billion just like that.” The experts and activists consulted by the committee included Dinanath Batra, national coordinator of the Shiksha Bachao Andolan; J.S. Rajput, former Director of the NCERT; and Joginder Singh, former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). A number of religious heads, too, were consulted.
Janaki Rajan, former Director of SCERT, Delhi, and now Honorary Director, Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, told Frontline that children had a right to unbiased education and schools were the agency to provide this. “Sex education should be made mandatory. There shouldn’t be any fear-mongering in the name of HIV and AIDS,” she said and added that some of the representations and questions in the AEP were not pedagogically sound. “Sex education cannot be in the form of a medical model. It has to be taught with feeling and respect. It should not be done away with in the name of culture,” she said.
While the last word on adolescence education is yet to be said, it is clear that the nature and content of any AEP will depend on what the government at the Centre wants it to be. One only hopes that the real needs of the adolescent group in a country as diverse as ours are not bypassed in the name of culture.
May. 23-Jun. 05, 2009
EDUCATION
Shades of saffron
by T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
The Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions sees a threat to Indian culture from the Adolescence Education Programme and rejects it.
[Photo]
Rajya Sabha members Thanga Tamil Selvan, M. Venkaiah Naidu, Maya Singh and Nandi Yellaiah meet the press after a discussion with parents in Chennai on the introduction of the Adolescence Education Programme in schools. A 2007 picture.
A PROGRAMME designed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) to impart adolescence education to children aged 14 and above in schools has run into trouble following an adverse report by the Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions. The committee, headed by M. Venkaiah Naidu of the Bharatiya Janata Party, stated in its 135th report that the Adolescence Education Programme (AEP) launched in 2005, was “a cleverly used euphemism whose real objective was to impart sex education to schoolchildren and promote promiscuity”. It also disapproved of the importance given to the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) in the AEP.
The 10-member committee was reconstituted three times – in 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 – with Venkaiah Naidu continuing as chairperson. Its members in 2008-09 were Vijay Darda, Dharam Pal Sabarwal and Ram Chandra Khuntia of the Congress, Maya Singh of the BJP, Subhash Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, N.R. Govindarajar of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Sabir Ali of the Lok Janshakti Party, Shyamal Chakravarty of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Virendra Bhatia of the Samajwadi Party.
The committee has imbued the report with its own interpretation of culture through sweeping generalisations of what an adolescence education programme for schoolchildren should contain. In the process, what could have emerged as a gender perspective on adolescence education has been reduced to a litany of criticism on what is culturally appropriate.
The committee’s report has come at a time when a review is under way and several State governments, who had been told that culturally specific modifications could be made according to their needs, have initiated the process in their curriculums and informed the petitions committee of the same at the State-level deliberations.
It is also not clear whether the committee’s report reflects the sentiments of a cross section of people other than those represented by religious organisations, the Save Education Committee and student organisations such as the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
By the committee’s own admission, the Rajya Sabha secretariat wrote to all States and Union Territories seeking their views. Only 13 States/Union Territories sent in their views; the committee heard the views of six States when it visited them. A perusal of the responses from the States the committee visited showed that not all of them had rejected the AEP in toto. While Gujarat and Rajasthan rejected it outright, many others had only made changes to it.
Interestingly, the report states that the students the committee interviewed in government schools, as also teachers and parents, were receptive to the idea. But it also declares that of the 4,50,000 representations it received, the overwhelming majority was against the introduction of AEP in schools. It noted a “general sense of protest amongst the stakeholders” during its visits. However, this sense of protest is not reflected in the views of a few State government representatives, students, teachers and parents mentioned in the committee’s report.
The culturally loaded conclusions in the report give the impression that the committee was set up with the sole purpose of imposing on adolescent minds a certain value system rather than to address their problems. Incidentally, the committee was set up on the basis of petitions and representations primarily from the Shiksha Bachao Andolan, which claims to be a “forum of nationalist historians, intellectuals, teachers, students and their parents resolved to protect India’s education system from exploitation by the regressive influences of Marx, Macaulay and Madrassa (the Evil Three)”.
The committee apparently collected feedback on the AEP for almost one and a half years. It concluded, among other things, that there should be no “sex education in schools”; that “a message should be given to schoolchildren that there should be no sex before marriage, which is immoral, unethical and unhealthy”; that “the new curriculum should include appropriate material on the lives and teachings of our great saints, spiritual leaders, freedom fighters and national heroes so as to inculcate in children our national ideals and values, which would neutralise the impact of cultural invasion from various sources”; that the “school syllabi should cater to the needs and requirement of our society and culture; and that “our country’s social and culture ethos are such that sex education has absolutely no place in it”.
The committee also noted that “basic human instincts like food, fear, greed, coitus, etc., need not be taught, rather control of these instincts should be the subject of education. But present [sic] academic system incites stimulation of instincts, which is detrimental to the society. To focus ‘Indian education’ on instinct control should be the important objective and for that the dignity of restraint has to be well entrenched in education.”
A leading educationist pointed out that the first few pages of the BJP’s manifesto for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections read much the same as the committee’s conclusions on culture and education. “It looks like the former HRD Minister of the NDA regime has drafted it,” he said.
The committee has asked the HRD Ministry to consider its recommendations when it finalises the new syllabus on the basis of the revised curriculum submitted to it by the National Review Committee. It has further recommended that feedback be taken from State governments, Union Territories, parents, experts, teachers and the general public, and that the revised syllabus so prepared be placed before a Chief Ministers’ conference for a consensus.
The committee has said that pending finalisation of the new syllabus the Ministry should issue advisories to the respective authorities in the States and Union Territories to withdraw the existing AEP literature from all schools, be they State-run or affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). In fact, the committee has called for a national policy on the new curriculum.
Consensus at seminar
The committee criticised the HRD Ministry for allowing NACO to control the entire exercise instead of seeking a national consensus on the AEP. The Ministry said in its defence that the consensus to introduce the AEP in schools was evolved at a national seminar on adolescence education organised by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on April 12-13, 1993.
The seminar, it said, was attended by eminent educationists, psychologists, medical scientists, curriculum developers, teacher-educators, school principals and teachers, government officials and non-government representatives involved in imparting education on sex, family life, AIDS, health, population and drug abuse. There were specialists from universities, State councils of educational research and training (SCERT), the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), NACO, the Centre for Social Research, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and representatives from United Nations organisations.
The seminar recommended the introduction of adolescence education in the curricula at all stages of schooling. Subsequently, the NCERT developed the general framework of adolescence education, which included the following three components: the process of growing up, HIV/AIDS, and drug abuse.
The HRD Ministry said the report of the seminar, titled “Adolescent Education in School”, brought out by the NCERT and the National Curriculum Framework 2005 paved the way for framing the AEP. Additionally, it explained that the AEP was an initiative to upscale three educational programmes that were being implemented. The implementation of the AEP was preceded by eight national workshops, which led to State-level action plans. More national-level meetings followed, after which the AEP tool kit was designed and the field testing was done in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh.
In 1999, the NCERT brought out a publication on “Adolescence Education in Schools”, whose objective was to ensure that children had proper knowledge about their bodies so that they were not lured to wrong information through their peers or other informal sources of learning.
The AEP concept came into existence after an inter-ministerial meeting on HIV/AIDS on October 27, 2004, at the HRD Ministry, which was identified as the lead agency for the implementation of the programme with financial and technical support from NACO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). It is perhaps the involvement of several funding agencies for the programme and the agenda-setting by some of them that led to the AEP receiving more flak than it merited.
Coming down heavily on the Ministry, the committee said “it was shocking to note how so many agencies of the government could come together, conceptualise a syllabus, provide all kinds of justification to it, spend substantial amount of money in the printing of the material and then circulate it throughout the country with the avowed aim of providing scientific information and knowledge to the adolescents whereas the reality was that the AEP volumes were highly objectionable and bound to be rejected lock, stock and barrel”.
Perhaps the only valid ground on which the AEP could have been criticised was its link with the prevention and control of HIV and AIDS. There is no doubt about the need for a gender-sensitive programme on sex and sexuality for adolescents irrespective of the perceived challenges of HIV and AIDS.
As an educationist involved with school education in Delhi pointed out, perhaps some of the explicit graphics, conceived as a tool kit for teachers, could have been modified given the sensitivities of teachers, especially male teachers, towards girl students. Anil Sadgopal, formerly Dean, Education, University of Delhi, said a gender perspective would be the right approach to instil in students a healthy attitude towards each other on issues related to sexuality and dispel the fears in this regard. The gender dimension, he said, would have taken it beyond issues of sex and sexuality.
“I do not subscribe to the notion of Indian culture described by the committee. Indian culture has the highest understanding of sex and sexuality. Perhaps the committee hasn’t been to Khajuraho. Even Meera Bai’s expression of bhakti for Krishna is so sensual,” he told Frontline.
He also opposed the term “life-skills” as used in the AEP. He said that life-skills meant different things for children living in different socio-economic milieus. “For a child in Jharkhand, it may be about land rights; for an upper middle class child in Delhi, it may mean something different,” he said.
He recalled how a curriculum prepared with a gender perspective was tested in 36 government higher secondary schools in Chattarpur district of Madhya Pradesh. It looked at reproductive health issues and the patriarchal notions about them. “It was received very well by the teachers, who were mainly from upper castes, and the students too,” he said.
One of the petitions that the committee received – from Asha Sharma of Delhi and Pratibha Naitthani of Mumbai, along with Anusuiya Uikey, a BJP member of the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, who countersigned the petition – stated that “the material prepared for sex education… would promote promiscuity of the worst kind”. The main prayer of the petitioners was to put a hold on the introduction of sex education. Interestingly, the programme under attack does not use the term “sex education” in its title.
Preconceived notions
The petition, filed on May 17, 2007, said sex education would “corrupt Indian youth and lead to a collapse of the education system, transform student-teacher relations into that of a man and woman, lead to the creation of immoral society and growth in single-parent families”. The petitioners contended that it was an education to sell condoms.
On its part, the committee seems to have proceeded with preconceived notions right from the start. While collecting oral evidence from the petitioners it dissuaded them from making a powerpoint presentation on the grounds that its “explicit contents” would be “embarrassing to the lady members and other lady staff present”.
It was a striking coincidence that the petitioners and the witnesses examined by the committee held almost similar views on the subject. Further, the objections of the main petitioners and those voiced by the committee appeared to be the same. Both seem to be worried about the prospects of unbridled “promiscuity”.
One educationist quipped: “We did not become one billion just like that.” The experts and activists consulted by the committee included Dinanath Batra, national coordinator of the Shiksha Bachao Andolan; J.S. Rajput, former Director of the NCERT; and Joginder Singh, former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). A number of religious heads, too, were consulted.
Janaki Rajan, former Director of SCERT, Delhi, and now Honorary Director, Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, told Frontline that children had a right to unbiased education and schools were the agency to provide this. “Sex education should be made mandatory. There shouldn’t be any fear-mongering in the name of HIV and AIDS,” she said and added that some of the representations and questions in the AEP were not pedagogically sound. “Sex education cannot be in the form of a medical model. It has to be taught with feeling and respect. It should not be done away with in the name of culture,” she said.
While the last word on adolescence education is yet to be said, it is clear that the nature and content of any AEP will depend on what the government at the Centre wants it to be. One only hopes that the real needs of the adolescent group in a country as diverse as ours are not bypassed in the name of culture.
May 19, 2009
Obscurantism rules - Shocking conservatism of Parliamentarians
The Telegraph
April 21, 2009
Editorial
SHOCK VALUE
It is alarming that crucial decisions regarding something as fundamental to human health and happiness as sexuality are taken by leaders of the nation whose thinking on the matter is a dangerous mix of bigotry and ignorance. The Committee on Petitions has recommended that there should be no sex education in schools since this promotes promiscuity and since India’s “social and cultural ethos are (sic) such that sex education has absolutely no place in it”. Headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Venkaiah Naidu, the committee comprises nine Rajya Sabha members from the entire party-political spectrum, and has only one woman in it. The committee’s outrage is directed against the human resource development ministry’s Adult Education Programme. Launched in 2005 and backed by the National AIDS Control Organization, the AEP had focused on safer sex, together with adolescent physical and mental development, for the 14-18 age group. Not only was the committee “highly embarrassed” by the HRD ministry’s PowerPoint presentation on this curriculum, but it has also recommended for this age group an alternative curriculum based on the lives and teachings of saints, spiritual leaders, freedom fighters and national heroes. This would endorse “national ideals and values” and “neutralize the impact of cultural invasion from various sources” with the help of naturopathy, Ayurveda, Unani, yoga and, of course, moral education.
Such a combination of conservatism, chauvinism and sheer irrationality is disconcerting for several reasons. First, emanating from the highest levels of the polity and uniting a diversity of political positions, it shows the extent to which the lives and bodies of some of the most vulnerable members of society remain in the control of the limited understanding and unlimited powers of a few. A blinkered and almost mythological understanding of the lives and sexuality of growing children, generalized to the point of absurdity, underpins such a mindset. The children themselves, as well as the adults who are responsible for their well-being, remain entirely deprived of agency in the making of these decisions and policies.
Finally, the assumptions on which this mindset is founded, and the terms in which they are publicly expressed, are equally frightening. The committee upholds that pre-marital sexual exploration, together with sex outside marriage, is “immoral, unethical and unhealthy”; consensual sex before the age of 16 “amounts to rape”; sex education promotes abusive behaviour in school, among students as well as between teacher and student, and is detrimental to the stability of the family. Perhaps the only hope lies in the fact that these are just nine shockingly regressive individuals trying to control the robustness of millions of sensible Indians.
April 21, 2009
Editorial
SHOCK VALUE
It is alarming that crucial decisions regarding something as fundamental to human health and happiness as sexuality are taken by leaders of the nation whose thinking on the matter is a dangerous mix of bigotry and ignorance. The Committee on Petitions has recommended that there should be no sex education in schools since this promotes promiscuity and since India’s “social and cultural ethos are (sic) such that sex education has absolutely no place in it”. Headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Venkaiah Naidu, the committee comprises nine Rajya Sabha members from the entire party-political spectrum, and has only one woman in it. The committee’s outrage is directed against the human resource development ministry’s Adult Education Programme. Launched in 2005 and backed by the National AIDS Control Organization, the AEP had focused on safer sex, together with adolescent physical and mental development, for the 14-18 age group. Not only was the committee “highly embarrassed” by the HRD ministry’s PowerPoint presentation on this curriculum, but it has also recommended for this age group an alternative curriculum based on the lives and teachings of saints, spiritual leaders, freedom fighters and national heroes. This would endorse “national ideals and values” and “neutralize the impact of cultural invasion from various sources” with the help of naturopathy, Ayurveda, Unani, yoga and, of course, moral education.
Such a combination of conservatism, chauvinism and sheer irrationality is disconcerting for several reasons. First, emanating from the highest levels of the polity and uniting a diversity of political positions, it shows the extent to which the lives and bodies of some of the most vulnerable members of society remain in the control of the limited understanding and unlimited powers of a few. A blinkered and almost mythological understanding of the lives and sexuality of growing children, generalized to the point of absurdity, underpins such a mindset. The children themselves, as well as the adults who are responsible for their well-being, remain entirely deprived of agency in the making of these decisions and policies.
Finally, the assumptions on which this mindset is founded, and the terms in which they are publicly expressed, are equally frightening. The committee upholds that pre-marital sexual exploration, together with sex outside marriage, is “immoral, unethical and unhealthy”; consensual sex before the age of 16 “amounts to rape”; sex education promotes abusive behaviour in school, among students as well as between teacher and student, and is detrimental to the stability of the family. Perhaps the only hope lies in the fact that these are just nine shockingly regressive individuals trying to control the robustness of millions of sensible Indians.
September 28, 2007
Culture policing in schools - state govts ban ban the Adolescence Education Programme for its “objectionable content"
Frontline
Volume 24 - Issue 19 :: Sep. 22-Oct. 05, 2007
EDUCATION
In the name of culture
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
in Delhi
A few State governments ban the Adolescence Education Programme for its “objectionable content” and force a review.
V.V. KRISHNAN
The nationwide Adolescence Education Programme (AEP), conceived by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), is under review following protests from some State governments. The AEP was meant to be implemented in the States through the departments of education in collaboration with the State AIDS Control Societies (SACS). Its main objective was to enable students in classes IX and XI to get adequate knowledge about the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the context of acquiring life skills. The AEP sessions, which were to be conducted by nodal teachers for a minimum of 16 hours in an academic year, are on growing up, adolescence, reproductive tract and sexually transmitted infections, and HIV and AIDS.
The review was necessitated after several States, mostly those ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), objected to what they felt was explicit content in the flip chart and the teachers’ workbook. The “objectionable content” included pictures of male and female reproductive systems and those depicting physical changes in boys and girls, diagrams explaining conception and contraception, and the language used in some exercises.
The State governments that objected to specific illustrations and exercises in the AEP are Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra and Rajasthan. In Orissa, the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) threw up its hands following protests over the “explicit” content and decided that only teachers and not students would be given exercises designed to teach reproductive changes. There were random protests in Jharkhand by the Islamic Students Organisation of India and in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir’s capital, by a women’s separatist outfit, Dukhtaran-i-Milat. The Jammu and Kashmir government, however, told a news agency that it did not have any proposal to introduce the programme.
Finally, education being a State subject, it was left to the respective State governments to utilise the AEP tool kit in the manner they deemed fit. Despite this understanding, a few States decided to ban the programme in its existing form citing several reasons, culture being the most prominent of them.
In a letter to the HRD Ministry, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan said “the Union government had devaluated Indian culture and its values.” He wrote: “I believe that the text material on the subject was not submitted before you in a proper manner or else you would not have approved it. Instead the younger generation should be taught about yoga, Indian culture and its values.” Interestingly, the controversy was kick-started by the Opposition Congress in the State; the ruling party took up the issue only later.
Rajasthan Education Minister Ghanshyam Tiwari noted that the course material was disgraceful and capable of corrupting young minds. Speaking at a press conference, Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said that sex education may have an adverse effect on young minds.
Though critics of the programme use the term “sex education”, nowhere has it been used in the flip chart or in the facilitators’ handbook for trainers. In fact, the rationale for the AEP was many. According to the latest Behavioural Surveillance Survey by NACO, nearly 8 per cent of those in the 15-24 age group had experimented with sex either before marriage or outside marriage. Nearly half of the new HIV infections were in this age group and 36 per cent of the total reported AIDS cases were among those under 29.
Even though HIV was the immediate factor behind the launch of the AEP, the other rationale for the programme was the 2007 study on child abuse by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. It suggested that nearly 53 per cent of the children reported having faced one or more forms of sexual abuse; in 50 per cent of the cases the abusers were known to the children or were in a position of trust and responsibility and most children did not disclose the matter to anyone. It was also estimated that each year, 10 million adolescents dropped out of secondary school, ill-equipped to handle life skills and situations.
Nearly 89 per cent of the adolescent girls and 67 per cent of the adolescent boys were found anaemic. Adolescent malnutrition was also found to be a growing challenge that led to higher maternal mortality and had an inter-generational impact. At present, adolescents (10-19 age group) constitute more than one-fifth of the population in the country.
The Kerala government decided to use the AEP tool kit with modifications, but most other States decided to ban the AEP following pressure as in the case of Maharashtra, where it came mainly from the Shiv Sena. Significantly, except for some political outfits and educational fronts such as the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, no parent or teacher had made any complaint against the AEP. In Delhi, the SCERT got applications under the Right to Information Act demanding information about the content of YUVA, the school adolescence education programme for classes VI to IX.
The Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti and organisations such as the Bharatiya Lok Sansthan staged protests in Delhi, with former Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi throwing his weight behind them. The Samiti’s national convener, Dina Nath Batra, warned of a countrywide agitation against sex education and the “distortion in history textbooks” by the United Progressive Alliance government. The organisation describes itself as a forum of nationalist historians committed to protecting the country against “conspiratorial forces” represented by the followers of Marx and Wahabism. In its website, it recalls the glorious path carved by the previous National Democratic Alliance government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) criticised the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti. In a statement issued on July 18, AIDWA said: “At a time when more and more facts are coming to light about sexual attacks of various kinds faced by adolescents at home, in schools and in the public sphere, the need for them to be given the requisite knowledge to recognise and ward off such advances is very necessary. It is also essential for young people to have access to knowledge about their own bodies and reproductive processes in a society where this may not be available to them in their own homes… By reacting to sex education as if it were some kind of pornography that would corrupt society and by not accepting social realities that are the real obscenities, the Samiti is only strengthening the status quo.”
Review committee
However, the HRD Ministry succumbed to the resistance and constituted a national-level tool kit review committee to make necessary modifications. This committee, comprising educationists, doctors, child psychologists, interfaith coalition members and communication experts, held its first meeting on August 8. It is reliably learnt that the committee has decided to review the tool kit drastically.
Earlier, in a last-ditch attempt to get the State governments to accept the tool kit in principle, NACO, in consultation with the HRD Ministry, had written to the Chief Ministers of States where the programme had been totally suspended, requesting them to constitute similar committees with teachers and parents to review the material. But as the protests continued relentlessly, the Union Health and HRD Ministries stepped in to salvage the situation.
Responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha in May, the HRD Ministry clarified that there was no proposal to include sex education in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum and that the AEP had been launched for secondary and higher secondary classes in order to empower the adolescent population to develop life skills for addressing psychological, social and health concerns.
The controversial tool kit, which was removed from public circulation following the brouhaha, had been primarily designed for the educators and for raising relevant “growing up” issues with adolescents. The material was prepared by NACO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Frontline obtained access to the tool kit and found that the graphics and illustrations in it were no more explicit than what was printed in biology textbooks. The language of the tool kit was also sensitively designed for adolescents in order to dispel stereotypes and distorted images of “growing up”.
In a note for educators, the tool kit says: “Growing up doesn’t mean preparing yourself for wifely/husbandly roles and for fatherhood or motherhood only. Nor does femininity mean being always shy and silent, in the same way masculinity does not mean that you have to be tough and invalidate the feelings of the opposite sex.”
There are key messages in every section, such as: “Adolescence is a normal process – it is not just you, everyone goes through it; be comfortable with yourself and your sexuality; learn to respect your body; do not be afraid to ask questions to parents, teachers or someone you trust.”
The session on “Growing Up” was meant to be conducted separately for boys and girls with a male teacher for boys and a female teacher for girls. One of the key messages to the educators while discussing contraception goes thus: “It is extremely important when discussing birth control to make it clear that we are not assuming that the students are, or should be, sexually active…. Be sure to adequately discuss abstinence as a birth control option.”
Both the handbook for refresher teachers’ training and the controversial flip chart have the saying “Knowledge is power” on the cover. The cover illustration is that of a co-educational classroom with a student and a teacher in discussion in front of a blackboard where the aphorism has been scribbled even as the rest of the class looks on.
The only thing perhaps remotely erroneous about the concept is that while adolescence education is the leitmotif of the tool kit, the immediate reason cited for imparting such education is to educate children about HIV and AIDS. A few educationists and counsellors in the SCERT, Delhi, told Frontline that the prevention of HIV and AIDS was behind the conception of the AEP and the component of HIV and AIDS was bound to be present in the programme as funds came from NACO. It appeared that the State Councils had little choice in the matter though they felt that adolescence education could have been imparted without the thrust on HIV and AIDS.
Interestingly, the programme was conceptualised as early as 1993 when a “Learning for Life” module was developed by the Department of Education and NACO in collaboration with the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and UNICEF; the HIV and AIDS component did not form a part of it then. In 1993, NACO implemented the School AIDS Education Programme in collaboration with the education departments in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
Before that, in 1980, the Ministry of HRD implemented the National Population Education Project across several States through the NCERT. In 1993, the Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health programme in schools was implemented with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in several States. The current controversial tool kit was also prepared by the HRD Ministry, NACO and UNICEF in collaboration with the State departments of education and State AIDS Control Societies. The content was based on State-level material, which was field tested and thoroughly vetted by the NCERT.
A lot of preparation had gone into the formulation of the AEP. The process began in October 2004 after an inter-ministerial meeting representing six Ministries decided that education on HIV prevention would be introduced as a co-curricular programme in 1.5 lakh schools within the overall health education package. Meetings were held throughout 2004-05 and it was decided that the HRD Ministry would be the lead agency in implementing the programme with financial and technical support from NACO, UNICEF and UNFPA.
Eight regional workshops were held in 2005, and the AEP tool kit was designed through a consultative process involving State governments. It was decided that each State would have a State Core Committee under the chairmanship of the State Education Secretary. The AEP tool kit was shared with all the State partners for their review and feedback. It was further decided that the States would adapt the AEP tool kit to their local contexts before printing. However, a common minimum content for HIV prevention was suggested within the framework of adolescence education.
In 2006, the existing school textbooks were analysed by the NCERT – the nodal agency within the HRD Ministry coordinating the AEP – to see if adolescence education components were adequately weaved into the curriculum. It was found that in 1,957 textbooks taken from 19 States, the quality and quantity of adolescence education was not enough. Therefore, in March 2007, the NCERT was mandated to do a mapping for adolescence education in collaboration with the States.
It now remains to be seen what the outcome of the review and its consequences for adolescence education will be. If, succumbing to pressures from self-styled custodians of Indian culture, the new avatar of the AEP sanitises the complex issues confronting adolescents, the objective of addressing this sensitive age group in the best scientific manner possible will not be achieved.
Volume 24 - Issue 19 :: Sep. 22-Oct. 05, 2007
EDUCATION
In the name of culture
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
in Delhi
A few State governments ban the Adolescence Education Programme for its “objectionable content” and force a review.
V.V. KRISHNAN
The nationwide Adolescence Education Programme (AEP), conceived by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), is under review following protests from some State governments. The AEP was meant to be implemented in the States through the departments of education in collaboration with the State AIDS Control Societies (SACS). Its main objective was to enable students in classes IX and XI to get adequate knowledge about the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the context of acquiring life skills. The AEP sessions, which were to be conducted by nodal teachers for a minimum of 16 hours in an academic year, are on growing up, adolescence, reproductive tract and sexually transmitted infections, and HIV and AIDS.
The review was necessitated after several States, mostly those ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), objected to what they felt was explicit content in the flip chart and the teachers’ workbook. The “objectionable content” included pictures of male and female reproductive systems and those depicting physical changes in boys and girls, diagrams explaining conception and contraception, and the language used in some exercises.
The State governments that objected to specific illustrations and exercises in the AEP are Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra and Rajasthan. In Orissa, the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) threw up its hands following protests over the “explicit” content and decided that only teachers and not students would be given exercises designed to teach reproductive changes. There were random protests in Jharkhand by the Islamic Students Organisation of India and in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir’s capital, by a women’s separatist outfit, Dukhtaran-i-Milat. The Jammu and Kashmir government, however, told a news agency that it did not have any proposal to introduce the programme.
Finally, education being a State subject, it was left to the respective State governments to utilise the AEP tool kit in the manner they deemed fit. Despite this understanding, a few States decided to ban the programme in its existing form citing several reasons, culture being the most prominent of them.
In a letter to the HRD Ministry, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan said “the Union government had devaluated Indian culture and its values.” He wrote: “I believe that the text material on the subject was not submitted before you in a proper manner or else you would not have approved it. Instead the younger generation should be taught about yoga, Indian culture and its values.” Interestingly, the controversy was kick-started by the Opposition Congress in the State; the ruling party took up the issue only later.
Rajasthan Education Minister Ghanshyam Tiwari noted that the course material was disgraceful and capable of corrupting young minds. Speaking at a press conference, Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said that sex education may have an adverse effect on young minds.
Though critics of the programme use the term “sex education”, nowhere has it been used in the flip chart or in the facilitators’ handbook for trainers. In fact, the rationale for the AEP was many. According to the latest Behavioural Surveillance Survey by NACO, nearly 8 per cent of those in the 15-24 age group had experimented with sex either before marriage or outside marriage. Nearly half of the new HIV infections were in this age group and 36 per cent of the total reported AIDS cases were among those under 29.
Even though HIV was the immediate factor behind the launch of the AEP, the other rationale for the programme was the 2007 study on child abuse by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. It suggested that nearly 53 per cent of the children reported having faced one or more forms of sexual abuse; in 50 per cent of the cases the abusers were known to the children or were in a position of trust and responsibility and most children did not disclose the matter to anyone. It was also estimated that each year, 10 million adolescents dropped out of secondary school, ill-equipped to handle life skills and situations.
Nearly 89 per cent of the adolescent girls and 67 per cent of the adolescent boys were found anaemic. Adolescent malnutrition was also found to be a growing challenge that led to higher maternal mortality and had an inter-generational impact. At present, adolescents (10-19 age group) constitute more than one-fifth of the population in the country.
The Kerala government decided to use the AEP tool kit with modifications, but most other States decided to ban the AEP following pressure as in the case of Maharashtra, where it came mainly from the Shiv Sena. Significantly, except for some political outfits and educational fronts such as the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, no parent or teacher had made any complaint against the AEP. In Delhi, the SCERT got applications under the Right to Information Act demanding information about the content of YUVA, the school adolescence education programme for classes VI to IX.
The Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti and organisations such as the Bharatiya Lok Sansthan staged protests in Delhi, with former Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi throwing his weight behind them. The Samiti’s national convener, Dina Nath Batra, warned of a countrywide agitation against sex education and the “distortion in history textbooks” by the United Progressive Alliance government. The organisation describes itself as a forum of nationalist historians committed to protecting the country against “conspiratorial forces” represented by the followers of Marx and Wahabism. In its website, it recalls the glorious path carved by the previous National Democratic Alliance government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) criticised the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti. In a statement issued on July 18, AIDWA said: “At a time when more and more facts are coming to light about sexual attacks of various kinds faced by adolescents at home, in schools and in the public sphere, the need for them to be given the requisite knowledge to recognise and ward off such advances is very necessary. It is also essential for young people to have access to knowledge about their own bodies and reproductive processes in a society where this may not be available to them in their own homes… By reacting to sex education as if it were some kind of pornography that would corrupt society and by not accepting social realities that are the real obscenities, the Samiti is only strengthening the status quo.”
Review committee
However, the HRD Ministry succumbed to the resistance and constituted a national-level tool kit review committee to make necessary modifications. This committee, comprising educationists, doctors, child psychologists, interfaith coalition members and communication experts, held its first meeting on August 8. It is reliably learnt that the committee has decided to review the tool kit drastically.
Earlier, in a last-ditch attempt to get the State governments to accept the tool kit in principle, NACO, in consultation with the HRD Ministry, had written to the Chief Ministers of States where the programme had been totally suspended, requesting them to constitute similar committees with teachers and parents to review the material. But as the protests continued relentlessly, the Union Health and HRD Ministries stepped in to salvage the situation.
Responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha in May, the HRD Ministry clarified that there was no proposal to include sex education in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum and that the AEP had been launched for secondary and higher secondary classes in order to empower the adolescent population to develop life skills for addressing psychological, social and health concerns.
The controversial tool kit, which was removed from public circulation following the brouhaha, had been primarily designed for the educators and for raising relevant “growing up” issues with adolescents. The material was prepared by NACO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Frontline obtained access to the tool kit and found that the graphics and illustrations in it were no more explicit than what was printed in biology textbooks. The language of the tool kit was also sensitively designed for adolescents in order to dispel stereotypes and distorted images of “growing up”.
In a note for educators, the tool kit says: “Growing up doesn’t mean preparing yourself for wifely/husbandly roles and for fatherhood or motherhood only. Nor does femininity mean being always shy and silent, in the same way masculinity does not mean that you have to be tough and invalidate the feelings of the opposite sex.”
There are key messages in every section, such as: “Adolescence is a normal process – it is not just you, everyone goes through it; be comfortable with yourself and your sexuality; learn to respect your body; do not be afraid to ask questions to parents, teachers or someone you trust.”
The session on “Growing Up” was meant to be conducted separately for boys and girls with a male teacher for boys and a female teacher for girls. One of the key messages to the educators while discussing contraception goes thus: “It is extremely important when discussing birth control to make it clear that we are not assuming that the students are, or should be, sexually active…. Be sure to adequately discuss abstinence as a birth control option.”
Both the handbook for refresher teachers’ training and the controversial flip chart have the saying “Knowledge is power” on the cover. The cover illustration is that of a co-educational classroom with a student and a teacher in discussion in front of a blackboard where the aphorism has been scribbled even as the rest of the class looks on.
The only thing perhaps remotely erroneous about the concept is that while adolescence education is the leitmotif of the tool kit, the immediate reason cited for imparting such education is to educate children about HIV and AIDS. A few educationists and counsellors in the SCERT, Delhi, told Frontline that the prevention of HIV and AIDS was behind the conception of the AEP and the component of HIV and AIDS was bound to be present in the programme as funds came from NACO. It appeared that the State Councils had little choice in the matter though they felt that adolescence education could have been imparted without the thrust on HIV and AIDS.
Interestingly, the programme was conceptualised as early as 1993 when a “Learning for Life” module was developed by the Department of Education and NACO in collaboration with the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and UNICEF; the HIV and AIDS component did not form a part of it then. In 1993, NACO implemented the School AIDS Education Programme in collaboration with the education departments in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
Before that, in 1980, the Ministry of HRD implemented the National Population Education Project across several States through the NCERT. In 1993, the Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health programme in schools was implemented with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in several States. The current controversial tool kit was also prepared by the HRD Ministry, NACO and UNICEF in collaboration with the State departments of education and State AIDS Control Societies. The content was based on State-level material, which was field tested and thoroughly vetted by the NCERT.
A lot of preparation had gone into the formulation of the AEP. The process began in October 2004 after an inter-ministerial meeting representing six Ministries decided that education on HIV prevention would be introduced as a co-curricular programme in 1.5 lakh schools within the overall health education package. Meetings were held throughout 2004-05 and it was decided that the HRD Ministry would be the lead agency in implementing the programme with financial and technical support from NACO, UNICEF and UNFPA.
Eight regional workshops were held in 2005, and the AEP tool kit was designed through a consultative process involving State governments. It was decided that each State would have a State Core Committee under the chairmanship of the State Education Secretary. The AEP tool kit was shared with all the State partners for their review and feedback. It was further decided that the States would adapt the AEP tool kit to their local contexts before printing. However, a common minimum content for HIV prevention was suggested within the framework of adolescence education.
In 2006, the existing school textbooks were analysed by the NCERT – the nodal agency within the HRD Ministry coordinating the AEP – to see if adolescence education components were adequately weaved into the curriculum. It was found that in 1,957 textbooks taken from 19 States, the quality and quantity of adolescence education was not enough. Therefore, in March 2007, the NCERT was mandated to do a mapping for adolescence education in collaboration with the States.
It now remains to be seen what the outcome of the review and its consequences for adolescence education will be. If, succumbing to pressures from self-styled custodians of Indian culture, the new avatar of the AEP sanitises the complex issues confronting adolescents, the objective of addressing this sensitive age group in the best scientific manner possible will not be achieved.
April 03, 2007
RSS prevails, Chhattisgarh too bans sex course
Indian Express
RSS prevails, C’garh too bans sex course
Nitin Mahajan
Posted online: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email
Schools: Both states face opposition to Adolescent Education Programme over ‘objectionable material’ being used
RAIPUR, APRIL 2 : The Chhattisgarh government has decided to end its Adolescence Education Programme. Days after similar steps were initiated by neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and two years after it introduced the programme in Classes IX and XI, the Raman Singh government asked the Chhattisgarh State Council for Educational Research and Training to immediately stop sex education in state schools, while instructing the SCERT to find ways “compatible with Indian culture” to create AIDS awareness among students.
The decision to abandon sex education in schools was taken after senior RSS functionaries objected to the “explicit material” being used in the Adolescent Education Programme, forcing the Chief Minister to direct SCERT to remove “objectionable” material and photographs which “do not have a place in Indian culture”.
Senior SCERT officials involved in the development and implementation of the programme had tried to convince the Chief Minister about the merits of the programme, urging him not to abandon it. But Raman bowed to the RSS’s demands. “The SCERT has been told to remove graphic anatomical pictures from the kit meant for teachers,” an official, baffled by the government’s decision, said.
Incidentally the step to remove sex education from school curriculum comes even as the RSS lobby, which has been keen to remodel the education system, managed to include yoga in the state school curriculum recently.
Speaking to The Indian Express, SCERT Director Nand Kumar confirmed that the government had sought “remodelling” of the Adolescence Education Programme. “We have been asked to remove photographs which were deemed too explicit and replace these with sketches and find other ways to create AIDS awareness,” he said.
The Chief Minister has also asked the SCERT to make a presentation of the remodelled programme, after which a decision on the future of the programme would be taken.
The programme was introduced in the state two years back and under it, Classes IX, X and XI students were to be imparted sex education and told about AIDS. About 725 teachers were provided training by the National AIDS Control Organisation and Unicef for making children aware about AIDS, in a project which cost Rs 25 lakh and had been implemented in a majority of districts in the state.
The government’s move has been severely criticised by people behind the project. “Scrapping the programme is not the solution. We need to find ways in which a student can be taught about AIDS and given sex education that does not affect the cultural sensitivity prevalent in an area,” Joint Secretary, Council Of Boards of Secondary Education (COBSE), Puran Chand said.
He pointed out that a few months ago COBSE, a consultative and apex body of education boards in the country, had launched a package on adolescent education and requested each state government to implement it. “However, due to non-cooperation from various states we have not been able to integrate sex education in the syllabus,” he added, stating that only 17 of the member 41 boards had replied positively to COBSE's initiative.
RSS prevails, C’garh too bans sex course
Nitin Mahajan
Posted online: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email
Schools: Both states face opposition to Adolescent Education Programme over ‘objectionable material’ being used
RAIPUR, APRIL 2 : The Chhattisgarh government has decided to end its Adolescence Education Programme. Days after similar steps were initiated by neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and two years after it introduced the programme in Classes IX and XI, the Raman Singh government asked the Chhattisgarh State Council for Educational Research and Training to immediately stop sex education in state schools, while instructing the SCERT to find ways “compatible with Indian culture” to create AIDS awareness among students.
The decision to abandon sex education in schools was taken after senior RSS functionaries objected to the “explicit material” being used in the Adolescent Education Programme, forcing the Chief Minister to direct SCERT to remove “objectionable” material and photographs which “do not have a place in Indian culture”.
Senior SCERT officials involved in the development and implementation of the programme had tried to convince the Chief Minister about the merits of the programme, urging him not to abandon it. But Raman bowed to the RSS’s demands. “The SCERT has been told to remove graphic anatomical pictures from the kit meant for teachers,” an official, baffled by the government’s decision, said.
Incidentally the step to remove sex education from school curriculum comes even as the RSS lobby, which has been keen to remodel the education system, managed to include yoga in the state school curriculum recently.
Speaking to The Indian Express, SCERT Director Nand Kumar confirmed that the government had sought “remodelling” of the Adolescence Education Programme. “We have been asked to remove photographs which were deemed too explicit and replace these with sketches and find other ways to create AIDS awareness,” he said.
The Chief Minister has also asked the SCERT to make a presentation of the remodelled programme, after which a decision on the future of the programme would be taken.
The programme was introduced in the state two years back and under it, Classes IX, X and XI students were to be imparted sex education and told about AIDS. About 725 teachers were provided training by the National AIDS Control Organisation and Unicef for making children aware about AIDS, in a project which cost Rs 25 lakh and had been implemented in a majority of districts in the state.
The government’s move has been severely criticised by people behind the project. “Scrapping the programme is not the solution. We need to find ways in which a student can be taught about AIDS and given sex education that does not affect the cultural sensitivity prevalent in an area,” Joint Secretary, Council Of Boards of Secondary Education (COBSE), Puran Chand said.
He pointed out that a few months ago COBSE, a consultative and apex body of education boards in the country, had launched a package on adolescent education and requested each state government to implement it. “However, due to non-cooperation from various states we have not been able to integrate sex education in the syllabus,” he added, stating that only 17 of the member 41 boards had replied positively to COBSE's initiative.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
