Editorial: Sex education, no more in the closet

Activists had reported that compared to the previous year, during the same period, crimes against girl children had increased by as much as 40 pc during the lockdown.

And now, with schools mulling the implementation of sex education, and the government vesting the responsibility with the State Commission for Protection for Child Rights after not being able to outsource the programme to other agencies, it remains to be seen how best the programme would successfully run its course.

Given the extremely sensitive nature of the programme and the state deeply entrenched in tradition and convention, the government would do well to bring on board stakeholders like school heads and teachers, subject experts, and peer educators before going ahead. That more than 500 cases of child sex abuse in schools were reported last year alone raises the gravity of the situation immensely, and points to a need for both parents and teachers to be “educated” as well. Otherwise, the government would face the same backlash they received when the public exams for Class 5 and 8 were mooted and suddenly withdrawn, much to the relief of teachers and parents alike.

Unfortunately, sex education is mainly considered in the context of the ‘act’ per se. Boys and girls are still seated separately in classrooms as a “safety measure.” The doodles in a school restroom would reveal how “enlightened” students are when it comes to knowledge of sex. Essentially, sex education needs to be bracketed into three stages in a student’s school life, i.e. from classes one to five, six to eight, and nine to twelve. It can range from knowledge of physiological, biological, and reproductive aspects, move on to differences in male and female organs, menstrual hygiene, and the final if not concluding stage could discuss aspects of safe sex, relationships, and role of love and consent.

School students in England are brought into the Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) programme from the age of eleven. Parents are also free to withdraw their children from the programme if they wish to and have the right to “opt in” when students reach the age of 16. With easy access to the internet and the power of social media within reach of young impressionable minds, it would be all the more challenging for the government to make sex education ‘relevant’ for school students. In Tamil Nadu, well known for providing quality education in schools and colleges, the real challenge will be about how well to implement the programme most pragmatically since an ill-conceived scheme is bound to have repercussions. If implemented successfully, it could be a role model for other states.