Sex education set to enter Haryana state-run schools

Sex education has finally entered the hinterlands of Haryana as a think-tank from ministries of human resource development, women and child development and health is set to start educating students on sex, contraceptives and natural urge in the state's government schools under Centre's National Health Mission Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram.

The aim of classes on sex education in Haryana's Yamunanagar is to end the stigma around sex and prevent teenage pregnancy culture from picking momentum.

The lessons will include treating sex as a natural desire and not an equivalent of a disorder. The educational module has a target audience of class 8th to 12th and is also expected to expand to anganwadis in Haryana.

The module will include educating students on sex education, nutrition demands of a body during adolescence, sex and reproductive health, gender violence, substance abuse.

The team members constituting representatives of state health department, WCD department and education department highlight that in some schools in Haryana, female students are attended only by male teachers, which adds to hesitation around the conversation on sex education.

FOCUS ON



ABOLISHING STIGMA AROUND SEX

Aiming to establish a progressive discourse, team members and teachers are being trained to sensitise students on how the attraction to opposite sex is a very natural phenomenon. The focus will be on ensuring that sex is treated as a need without any disgust. "We cannot emphasise enough on how there is a dire need to abolish the stigma around sex," Dr Dharamveer Singh, assistant project coordinator and member of the committee told .

The lessons, to be delivered in the government schools and anganwadis, will highlight that indulging in sex entails social and health consequences. This will precisely solve the naive conundrums in a teenagers head, said Dharamveer.

"It is currently targeting every block of Yamunanagar with a sole aim to make the teens understand that sex is acceptable but pregnancy before maturity is not," Dr Sunil Kumar, deputy civil surgeon and a member of the project from State Health Department said.

Another societal hurdle underlined by Kumar is that while some have agreed to the significance of imparting sex education, the mammoth task is to find someone who will be comfortable delivering lessons on venereal conduct.