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Govt. backs out of sex education

Special Correspondent

"Inconsistent with Indian culture''

JAIPUR: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government in Rajasthan has decided to discontinue the Adolescent Education Programme (AEP) devised by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) in secondary schools across the State with immediate effect, describing it as "inconsistent with Indian culture and human values''.

The decision follows a series of protests mostly by right-wing Hindu groups against graphics and pictorial description used in the course material provided under AEP. The programme was widely perceived as a curriculum on explicit sex education.

Official sources here said on Tuesday that Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje had apprised Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh of the decision to stop the AEP and written to him that the State Government "does not consider it appropriate to carry on the programme in its present form''.

In her letter addressed to Mr. Singh, Ms. Raje affirmed that students of Class IX and X, who were in the early stage of puberty, did not need this kind of education.

The AEP, prepared by the Council of Boards of School Education in India as the country's first comprehensive package on adolescence education, is managed by NACO and funded by UNICEF. The programme concentrates on reproductive and sexual health of teenagers, awareness about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and prevention of unwarranted pregnancies.

Madhya Pradesh and Kerala had earlier backed out of the programme following resistance by political and religious groups.

Ms. Raje pointed out in her letter that the State Government had introduced a syllabus on "life skills'' for students of Class XI with emphasis on personal health and hygiene. "The curriculum takes into account all sensitivities and provides for proper clarifications by trained teachers to students' doubts and queries,'' she said.

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