Just say "no" ?
"New Delhi: Condom and safe sex terms that will find no mention in the new sex education module being devised for school students in India. It will instead stress on abstinence, the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) announced Monday.
NACO director-general Sujatha Rao said the module would be adopted after intensive consultations with all partners, including parents and teachers.
"There will be no mention of condom or safe sex in the revised module life-skill education programme. But we will be focussing on the aspirations of the youngsters and will also talk about being faithful to one's partner and abstinence There should be no hypocrisy on the subject," Rao told journalists at a meet on Response to HIV/AIDS: Forging Partnership with the Media.
The decision to introduce sex education in India's schools was aimed primarily at creating awareness about HIV/AIDS since 2.5 million people in the country suffer from the disease. However, the module created a furore.
One of the main objections was a flip chart prepared for teachers jointly by the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) and the government-controlled NACO.
Educationists themselves turned against the programme and after states like Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, UP, Kerala and Karnataka banned it, NACO formed a committee last year to make a new module."
The doublespeak and hypocrisy continue unabated. As someone who works on the periphery of Education in India, this is representative of the challenges facing educators and progressive elements in the sector. How can progressive stances be adopted at a policy level when, like any other issue, Education is used as a pawn in political games? This is teeth gnashing stuff right here...and at times, fills me with a faint dread that in the game of helping our kids be smarter, more productive citizens, we are failing and badly on a mass scale; while isolated "experimental" schools continue to push the boundaries of education to create even brighter children increasing the intellectual inequity that already plagues Indian society. The intellectual divide will only spawn a larger, more dangerous wealth divide and the circle continues. I really wonder sometimes if hope does spring eternal...
posted by Abs @ 7/29/2008 01:30:00 PM
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