On a late September afternoon, hundred odd children of the Kulathummel government school in Kattakada in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, getting to skip an hour or two of class, had a spring in their step. They were told that a special session was arranged for them in the big hall behind the principal’s office. Seating themselves the way they did in class – boys in the first rows, girls behind – they shot curious glances at the two new figures that emerged from the doorway. Any signs of awkwardness slipped away as soon as the newcomers began talking, putting the children at ease with a few friendly introductions and zero formalities. The session, arranged for the 14 and 15-year-olds of the school, was titled Comprehensive Sexuality Education.
Similar sessions have been carried out in most government schools in the city and Kattakada was one of the first in the outskirts. Kanal, a Non-Governmental Organisation, has been tasked with conducting the sessions by the General Education Department of Kerala. The initiative was launched in Thiruvananthapuram as ‘Project X’ by Collector Geromic George in July this year, in government and aided schools. The sessions are happening at a time when the General Education Department is also incorporating a change in the syllabus, to include portions related to overall sexuality from the next academic year.
The session, facilitated by two special educators at Kanal, follows a module designed by the NGO and approved by the district administration, says Anson Alexander, Kanal’s director. “We have been conducting these sessions since 2018, and last year, we covered 10,000 students across schools and colleges in Kerala. It is carried out in two parts – the first is a joint session for all students, the second is separate for girls and boys,” Anson says.
At the Kattakada school, Advocate Ubaidulla conducted the session for the boys and Gowri Anil for the girls. In the first round – where students and even teachers were present – yellow slips of paper with questions about gender, identity, consent, and sex laws were given to the children to be filled in before the session began. Amid loud whispers, murmurs, and giggling sprees, they wrote the answers. Ubaid and Gowri, the sex educators of the day, glanced briefly through the answers before launching into the session. With admirable simplicity, Ubaid asked the children very basic questions that shook the roots of their prejudices and wiped away the initial bursts of muddled laughter with the ease of one who finally tells the kids the facts of life, without mincing words.
Aren’t you different from how you used to be a few years ago, he asked, and when the children nodded enthusiastically, he asked, how. Hair growth, voice change, pimples, they said. He echoed these and added to the list, chest enhancement for the boys, breast development for the girls. He shushed the last of the giggles when he asked what was the first food every one of them had in their lives and where that came from. “We learn many things the wrong way, that is why we laugh when we hear certain topics. Did you all laugh when you had breast milk? Will you all laugh when in the future your kids have breast milk from their mothers?” Ubaid asked.
The children were more forthcoming afterward, shouting out the names of reproductive organs when asked, unreluctant to name the largest sexual organ in the human body. A few kids showed their awareness in naming the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act when Ubaid asked them about the law that protects children from sexual violence. They listened in revered silence as anecdotes were shared to tell the difference between gender and sex, and together ridiculed the senselessness of stereotypical gender roles. “Won’t the kids grow up if men raise them? Won’t the rooms be clean if men sweep them?” Ubaid asked and loud shouts of “Yes” came from across the hall.
Even as they loosened up, there were no questions coming from the children. “That happens in the individual sessions afterward. Girls mostly ask questions related to menstruation – such as, will they lose their virginity if they insert a menstrual cup. Few ask anything sex-related, there may rarely be a question about masturbation or lubricants,” Gowri tells TNM.
Boys, however, ask a lot about masturbation and porn hygiene. They ask if girls do it, they ask doubts about consent, if it is wrong to touch or kiss a girlfriend, Ubaid says.
At the end of the session, they also take feedback from the students during which a rare instance of domestic abuse may come to light. Since the feedback is anonymous, the educators can only alert the school authorities and report it to the Directorate of Education. “They may not have recognised it as abuse when it happened, but our session would have made them realise it,” Gowri says.
The sessions may have follow-ups, and may be replicated in the other districts, Anson says. Currently, they are preparing sessions to train teachers at schools so the teachers can take it forward.
Integration into the curriculum
Shanavas S, the Director of General Education, said that changes are being incorporated in textbooks for classes 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, which will include various aspects of sexuality education, from safe touch and unsafe touch to changes in the body and the laws that are in place to address abuse.
“We have been holding meetings, taking into consideration the opinion of children too, before making these changes. Three lakh students in various schools across the country took part in discussions. We spoke to parents, teachers, policy makers, and activists. It was understood that kids should be made aware of a lot of topics, including aspects of sex education, consent, rights, the laws and court verdicts and directives of the Child Rights Commission,” he says.
The changes will be part of different subjects including Biology and Civics. There are also modules meant for parents, he said, and a topic called Adult Education is being introduced. A year later, changes in curriculum will be made for classes 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 (so that those who were in odd-numbered classes the year before and were taught the new curriculum can continue their lessons).
Though there has always been a chapter called Reproduction in Biology textbooks, the practice in many schools was to skip it entirely or skim through it leaving the students with half-baked knowledge. “I remember my teacher rushing through it with a straight face that before we could grasp what was going on the class was over,” said a woman who had the chapter in Class 10, around 20 years ago.
Earlier attempts at introducing Sex Ed in schools
Former Minister of Education in Kerala, MA Baby, says that in the mid 2000s there was a recommendation made by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development to consider the topic of adolescent education in schools. It was meant to prepare children in their growing stages to understand the changes they were going through, to understand abuse, and more.
“It was said that since joint families had been replaced by nuclear families, there was no one to teach the kids about it. The General Education Department (in Kerala) was going ahead with the project, carrying out discussions with doctors and health professionals, and preparing some proposals to make it part of the school curriculum. However, a newspaper got wind of it and published an article saying that the government was about to introduce sex education in schools and lead the kids astray,” Baby says.
After this, it was raised in the Assembly and became a controversy. This put the project on the backburner and sex education continued to be left out of syllabus for generations of students.
There have been attempts before this, to bring in some sort of sex education even decades ago. Josephine (name changed) who worked as a counsellor tells TNM about being invited to a boys’ school in Kerala in the early 1990s to conduct a session on sexuality education for children in various grades. This meant that she altered the content for children of different ages. The pre-teens, for example, would be told about the new changes in their body, like hair growth and other puberty-related matters. Older students would receive more in-depth sessions on the body and sex. Josephine talks about the Q and A which followed these sessions and the kind of questions that were asked in anonymous notes.
“One question I got was how often do I have sex. One of the teachers who was there said I didn’t have to answer the question. But I did, because that let me talk about the subject of privacy. I said that the relationship between two people is their personal business and this was something I didn’t wish to talk about. The thing is, in Biology, students learn about the body organs and their functions, but they do not know what to do with the feelings they get when they are growing up and these changes occur,” she says.
However, such sessions by experts never progressed to integrating sex education into the curriculum.
Making it comprehensive sexuality education
Anson says that the term ‘sex education’ can itself put off people because of the prejudices associated with it. But what Kanal offers is a complete picture, comprehensive sexuality education as they call it, covering all aspects surrounding the many biological concerns of a developing child.
Thiruvananthapuram Collector Geromic George who initiated the idea of Project X says that when he came across Kanal’s work in raising awareness on the POCSO Act and the sexual offences under it, it also highlighted the lack of such education in schools. He adds that the feedback from these sessions has been so great that they plan to pitch it to the Education Department to replicate it in other districts and slowly start integrating it into the curriculum if possible.
High time it is part of curriculum: School authorities
One such session may not be enough, says Neetha, principal of the Nedumangad Girls High School. “We hope there will be follow-up so the child will get the full benefit of it. Sex education should definitely be a part of the curriculum,” she says.
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Lailas, principal of the Pattom Girls High School, agrees, saying that it was true that many teachers skip the chapter on reproduction while they give lectures on the theory of evolution and matters of spirituality. “Not only should sex education be part of the school curriculum but teachers should be trained to deal with the subject in the proper manner. As of now, we have a counsellor who addresses doubts and questions from girl students in these matters,” he says.
Parents open to sex ed in schools
Though sex education was perceived as a taboo subject for the longest time, many parents TNM spoke to were open to the idea. While they all said it was “absolutely required”, some suggested that age-appropriate classes should be introduced from pre-school. Vandhana Rajendran, mother to a teenager and a 9-year-old, says she was fortunate to get a guest lecture on sex education more than 25 years ago on the lines of what Kanal is doing today. But it was not part of her curriculum, and all these years later, her son in Class 10 is also not taught the subject at school.
“People think that the more kids know about it, the more they want to experiment, but my understanding is that if kids are aware of what the consequences are for any action, then they will be more responsible. You give them the right knowledge and the right skills and tell them about the consequences, then they will make informed choices,” Vandhana says.
Asha, the mother of a 14-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl in Thiruvananthapuram, says that she was clueless if her son was even aware of sex and sexuality related topics. “Normally it is introduced in your friends’ circle but I can’t judge how much he or his friends know. My basic concern is the personal hygiene that kids of this age should take care of. I can talk to my daughter but I do not know how to do that with my son. So I think it will be good if he gets proper knowledge on this from his school, especially for parents like me who don’t know how to approach the subject. My daughter recently had a seminar at school about menstruation and now she is prepared for it. Schools can teach about these topics in a very responsible way. There are so many mediums that kids can pick these things up from now, so it will be great if it comes from school, through the proper channel.”
Vandhana also stresses on the importance of trained professionals conducting the class, otherwise they might mix it with morals or religion. It has to be, Vandhana says, scientific and also cover legal aspects. “Most kids today might be aware of consent because of social media. But they may not be aware that when it comes to minors, age is more important than consent from a legal perspective,” she says.
Ubaidulla, in his class, narrated anecdotes to explain the legal aspects. He pointed out that even if they are minors, they could still be accused in a POCSO case. He also described toxic relationships and how they can ruin whole lives without timely intervention.
Even years ago, when Josephine was taking sessions at schools in Thiruvananthapuram in the 1990s, the parents were all more than welcoming of such a session and grateful that someone else was having this conversation with their children when they couldn’t. If that was the case 30 years ago, then it would seem a sort of myth that parents have always been opposed to their children getting sex education at school. A myth that appears to have so far made it difficult to bring sex education to schools.