It appears that the intellectuals of our country are totally taken with the idea of sex education. Great. Children ought to be told about the birds and bees. But the sex education proposal has met with various roadblocks. The commies in Kerala don't want anything to do with it which may have something to do with the high Muslim population in the state. Mayawati wanted sex-ed but angry teachers in UP rejected it. Various governments, both Congress and BJP, have decided not to introduce sex-ed.We do not have much opinion on this matter, except that one can not ignore the political opportunism at play here. As if we do not have more important issues to tackle.
You can rest assured, even the most staunch proponents of sex-ed within Congress will not make a peep on this topic while campaigning in rural or Muslim dominated areas. These issues are exclusive to the habla Englais crowd. Basically it gives your sec-soc friends another stick to beat you with in case you happen to support a certain communal party.
Sex-ed is also being touted as a panacea for AIDS, teenage pregnancy and as a measure to prevent sexual abuse of children. These are questionable claims.
Sex-ed is a serious topic, it's not picnic. It is not like you give condoms to your kids at age 12 and take them to a sex party like folks do for chicken pox. When the kids in the above pic start to paw one another, it won't look so cute any more.
Introducing sex-ed could be a good idea but trying to score political goals with from the get go is doomed for failure.
2 comments:
Barbar,
Sex education is a part of the larger health education curriculum, unfortunately ignored in most schools in India. There is a clear positive correlation between teen sexual health and the extent of sex education in the Western world. France where the day-after-pill is freely available in high school and Sweden where counselling is extensive have the lowest incidence of teen pregnancy. In India there are about 3-400 million people in semi-urban and urban India the sexual health of whom is of no concern to anyone except kindly souls like Vidyakar of www.udavumkarangal.org.
I found this contest and it seems like an excellent opportunity for those whose education is
being so fiercely debated to speak for themselves and I thought that
you and your readers might be interested. ISIS-Inc and RH Reality
Check have launched a contest called Fresh Focus Sex Ed Video Contest.
Film makers must be 15-30 years old and make an original video about
sex education that follows one of two themes: 1. Share your sex ed
experience so far. Show us how and why it sucked or rocked. OR 2.
Redesign how sex ed could be delivered. Imagine that anything is
possible.
Read the official contest rules and submit entries at www.dogooder.tv/freshfocusvideocontest
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