Debate still on in sex education in Bengal schools

Kolkata, Dec 19 (IANS) Study of sex education in state-run schools is still a matter of debate in West Bengal. State Education Minister Bratya Basu Thursday said opinions of various stakeholders in education counts before taking the decision.

“I have asked the expert committee few days back, to review and let me know what educationists and stakeholders in education have to say on this…then we will think about it and implement,” Basu told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

The event witnessed the participation of students from leading global universities like Britain’s Oxford and Cambridge and US’ Harvard and Yale among others.

Last year, the Council of Boards of School Education in India (Cobse) had proposed the inclusion of adolescent education as part of the syllabus from classes 8 to 12.

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“They (institutes like Harvard) can talk about sex education freely but we can’t take it mechanically…when the authorities take a decision they do so in favour of seniors,” said Basu.

A few years back, the erstwhile Left Front government had introduced teaching of sex education under the name of lifestyle education.

However, the plan proved a failure, with reluctant teachers utilising the lifestyle education classes for finishing the syllabus in other subjects.

“The book was not at all interesting. Teachers were also reluctant. The last period of the day was assigned for the subject. Some teachers used it for imparting lessons on other subjects to finish the syllabus,” said a teacher of a secondary school.

“Till this year, we had a weekly period assigned for it. But from next year, it won’t be there,” she said.

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