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New
Delhi:
No sex education, please, basic instincts don’t
require learning.
A Rajya Sabha panel today suggested
that sex education was unnecessary in schools as human instincts
such as hunger, fear, greed and sex were inborn and there was no
need to “stimulate” them out of turn.
Rather, the need was to groom
schoolchildren on how to control the instincts and teach them the
importance of restraint.
“Basic human instincts like food,
fear, greed, coitus etc need not be taught; rather, control of these
instincts should be the subject of education,” the report submitted
by the Rajya Sabha committee on petitions said.
“But the present academic system
incites stimulation of instincts, which is detrimental to the
society. To focus Indian education on ‘instinct control’ should be
an important objective, and for that the dignity of restraint has to
be well entrenched in the education.”
The committee, headed by BJP leader
Venkaiah Naidu, gave its recommendations on a petition seeking a
national debate to evolve a consensus on whether sex studies should
be introduced in CBSE-affiliated schools from Class VI.
The petition, admitted by the Rajya
Sabha on August 9, 2007, said that such a proposal by the HRD
ministry had “shocked the conscience of all the culture-loving
people of this country” and pleaded that implementation be withheld
till a consensus was evolved.
It is not clear whether schools have
introduced sex education or what stage of implementation the
proposal is at. Reports said some schools had introduced the
lessons.
The committee on petitions today
appeared to go along with the petitioners, citing Indian culture and
ethos as one more reason not to introduce sex education in schools.
“Our country’s social and culture
ethos are such that sex education has no place in it,” the report
said.
The HRD ministry had argued that the
idea was “adolescence education” and not “sex education”. Moreover,
the lessons were not meant for children of primary classes but for
secondary and higher secondary-level students (Classes IX-XII)
between the ages of 15 and 18, it had said.
Some other recommendations made by the
panel are:
a) Schoolchildren should be given the
“message” that sex before marriage is immoral, unethical and
unhealthy;
b) Chapters on “Physical and mental
development in adolescents”, HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted
diseases should be removed from the school curriculum and included
in biology textbooks at the Plus Two stage;
c) The curriculum should include
appropriate material on the lives and teachings of saints, spiritual
leaders, freedom fighters and national heroes “to re-inculcate
national ideals and values” in children.
The report did not explain how schools proposed to teach children
the immorality of sex before marriage without having such studies in
the curriculum.
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