The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Making sense of sex education in schools State Trends

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Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Making sense of sex education in schools State Trends

Sangeeth Kurian

The society in general might be experiencing an information overload, but there is practically no responsible channel of communication between society at large and the adolescent population on sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases. Here is a survey of the scene against the backdrop of the controversy generated by the Centrally initiated ‘Adolescent Education Programme.’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When a counselling centre in Thiruvananthapuram recently undertook a survey on the awareness of high school and higher secondary school students about sexuality and related physiological issues, only 8 per cent of the 452 participants in the survey could give a correct answer to the question ‘What is HIV?’ A 15-year-old even described ‘HIV’ as an institution!

The survey, undertaken by Thrani, in select high schools and higher secondary schools in the capital city, is perhaps indicative of the abysmal level of awareness among adolescents on matters relating to sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases, despite HIV being a topic in their curriculum.

“There is an abject lack of awareness among students on matters related to sex and HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus),” says Mary Hazel Thomas, coordinator, Thrani. “Teachers often skip the topic in schools arguing that it would degrade their worth as educators,” adds K.T. Jayaprakash, health inspector and resource person, Kerala State AIDS Control Society, who has been conducting awareness classes on AIDS at schools in Kannur and Malappuram.

MHRD initiative

The move by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development to introduce the topic in schools from the beginning of this academic year through the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT), under the euphemistically titled ‘Adolescent Education Programme,’ has generated much heat and dust in Kerala what with certain student organisations and church leaders offering stiff resistance to it on the contention that the programme module will lead to .moral decadence’ and ‘sexual anarchy.’

The module launched in association with the National AIDS Control Organisation was proposed to be implemented after suitable modifications in Classes IX and XI covering over 4,000 high school and higher secondary schools in the State. However, following the controversy the module has been revised again, watering down the ‘controversial’ sections relating to the process of growing up. The focus of the programme has also been shifted from sex education to life skill development. Even this revised module is yet to receive the mandatory approval from the curriculum committee.

The development has saddened many. “This is the first time the Government has launched a comprehensive adolescent education programme for the entire nation, but now we can hope to deal with the issue only a superficial level,” points out P.M. Alphonsa, who is in-charge of the programme at SCERT.

Addressing anxieties

“People should realise that sex education is a necessity. The focus of the prorgamme is not just on sex as such, but in addressing anxieties in children relating to mental, physical and sexual aspects of growing up. It is like handing over a torch to them to show the path ahead,” says Amar Fettle, a paediatrician involved in the life skill development programmes of the State Departments of Education and Health.

S. Sreelatha, State epidemiologist, agrees with Dr. Fettle. “Living in 2007 is not like living in 1957. Earlier we had joint families that enabled children to share their concerns with elders with whom they were comfortable with. The arrival of nuclear families has foreclosed that option,” she says and adds, “Boys are comparatively the disadvantaged lot, as girls tend to speak more to their parents, especially their mothers. For the boys, the only information they receive is from their peer group or by reading pornographic literature that provides a distorted view,” she points out.

Dr. Fettle advises parents to adopt a broad-minded approach while discussing matters related to sex with their children. “Instead of switching channels and preventing children from viewing an advertisement on safe sex, for example, parents should engage them in a healthy and informed discussion on the topic. To think that children will automatically gain information about sexuality and sexual behaviour is foolish,” says Dr. Fettle.

Mariam Thomas, head of the Department of Gynaecology, Kottayam Medical College Hospital, too emphasises the need for imparting ‘age appropriate’ sex education for children. She says that the number of Medically Terminated Pregnancies (MTPs) or abortions among adolescents at the hospital has more than doubled from eight cases in 2005 to 19 in 2006. A majority of the adolescents were students in the age group of 15 to 19 years who had been outside the State for higher studies.

Dr. Thomas believes that the number could be even higher.

Though prevalence of HIV is described as ‘low’ in Kerala at present, its proximity to States where the prevalence is high and the fact that it has an increasing migrant population makes the State ‘highly vulnerable’ to the spread of the virus, according to the AIDS Control Society. The largest number of new cases of HIV infection is found in the age group of 15 to 24 years. This is a global phenomenon and Kerala is no exception, says Dr. Fettle. (According to The Economist magazine, in India, 44 per cent of the reported AIDS cases are among 15 to 29-year-olds).

Creating awareness

The survey conducted by Thrani shows that the Government needs to impart sex education urgently and create awareness about the growing number of sexual abuses taking place among children. Nearly 90 per cent of the students who participated in the survey believed that sex education would empower and protect them from sexual abuses, according to counsellors and health care professionals.

“The State should focus on creating awareness on sexual abuses. Most of the abuses take place within the family environment with the perpetrators being siblings, relatives or neighbours, but the children often do not understand that what they undergo is sexual exploitation,” says Ms. Thomas of Thrani.

“Sexual abuse of boys at an early age by the members of the same sex can lead to homosexual tendencies in the child,” she says and adds that this often causes conflict and depression when later as adults they realise that their behaviour is not accepted by mainstream society.

National row

The controversy over sex education has now snowballed into a national row with six other States, including Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh also deciding against its implementation. In contrast, Tamil Nadu implemented a programme for sex education of children from Class IX onwards with little fuss from 1997.

“The State has a panel of teachers who are able to speak on the relevance of the subject with convincing clarity,” says Devashish Dutta, Technical Specialist, HIV/AIDS, United Nations Children’s Fund, about the success of the programme.

Perhaps it is time now for Kerala to learn a few lessons from its neighbour.

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