New Delhi: The Maharashtra government has backtracked on its plan to introduce sex education in government schools after opposition from MLAs across party lines.
The state Education Minister Vasant Purke announced this decision in the Assembly on Wednesday. Purke said the decision to include sex education in Class IX and Class XI has been shelved after criticism by Opposition parties. The BJP had said sex education was against Indian culture.
The state government was reportedly planning to introduce the subject from the next academic year.
After the Human Resource Development Ministry’s ambitious National Adolescent Education Programme (NAEP) ran into trouble in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the Government was forced to tone down the content of the course manual.
Even the Central Board of Secondary Education steered clear of using “explicit” words in the teachers’ manual of sex education to ward off potential objection from any quarters.
While topics like arousal, masturbation, ejaculation, intercourse and teenage pregnancy have been deleted from the teacher’s manual, diagrams and posters that describe the passage from puberty to adulthood – and were the cause of uproar – have also been done away with.
The programme, currently being field tested in 7,000 schools across the country, isn't all about sex. It deals with topics as diverse as drug abuse and facial hair.
Strong reactions from teachers, especially in Punjab and UP, have prompted the Board to water down the handbook. The revised version is to ensure that the entire programme is not scrapped.
'Education audit' in Maharashtra
Replying to a marathon debate in the Legislative Council over the state of education in schools Purke on Tuesday said the provisions of the Right to Education Bill would include penalising parents who deprive their children of primary education. The punishment may even include imprisonment, he said.
Purke also said that the government has decided to conduct an “education audit” wherein official funds to various educational schemes will be monitored.
A few years ago, the Democratic Front government had invited flak for announcing board exams for class IV students, however the plan was shelved after parents and children protested.
Meanwhile, Purke does not seem to take lessons from the past. On Tuesday, he announced in the state Assembly that board exams were being planned for VII standard. He also said that agricultural science would be introduced in the school syllabus.
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