New Delhi: Sex education is a subject that has for long seen a convenient absence from most of India's schools.
And when the Kerala government decided to implement the Adolescent Education Programme (AEP) prescribed by the UNICEF in schools in Thiruvananthapuram, the programme had to be shelved due to widespread resistance.
A section of teachers and student outfits, protesting the use of the handbooks on sex education, alleged that its content bordered on pornography.
"The handbook is all about sexual perversion. It creates the impression that everything is all right if you use condoms properly," Shajar Khan, secretary of the All India Democratic Students Organisation (AIDSO), the outfit which had strongly come out against the programme, told PTI.
However, the AEP has been put on hold only temporarily and Education Minister M A Baby says that necessary changes would be made in the curriculum to suit the value system in Kerala.
Sources in the minister's office told PTI that the programme would be taken up only after a detailed consideration by the Curriculum Steering Committee.
The teachers who had been trained at the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) — the organisation entrusted with the implementation of the programme — say they are unwilling to teach the subject in the prescribed mode.
The handbook, which has been prepared for children studying in ninth and eleventh standards, is aimed at imparting knowledge about sex and adolescence. It is being implemented at the national level by NCERT.
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