Indian kids: Still Struggling with the Basics of the Birds & the Bees

Adolescence Education Programme (AEP) in India was formally launched in 2005 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in collaboration with National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO). Adolescence education, more commonly known as Sexuality Education in the west, has been debated in India amidst grave concerns and oppositions from educators and conservative political parties. In 2007, several states in India including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh had suspended the programme with objections over the content and even, its over all need by parents, teachers and policy makers.

Former HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi accused sex education was nothing but a “foreign conspiracy by international NGOs to get money under the guise of AIDS control and education.” Many right wing political activists argued that Indian youth did not require sex education and heavily criticized UNICEF and NACO for their overzealous push for sex education and for the content of the school manuals brought out by them.

But at the alarmingly increasing rates of HIV and AIDS infection, child sexual abuse, drug abuse and risky sexual experimentation by adolescent youth in the country among many other disconcerting realities and statistical indicators, a structured programme guideline was very much the need of the ticking hour.

The AEP is taught in all secondary and higher secondary schools, both public and private schools, affiliated with CBSE across the country. The AEP is taught as curricular/co-curricular adolescence education to students in classes 9^th to 12^th and as life skills education to students in classes 1^st to 8^th.  Programs based on AEP curriculum are being implemented with linguistic and cultural context modifications by state boards like SCERT.

At the national level, United National Population Fund (UNFPA) has reached out to adolescents through a range of interventions and partners, like the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MOYAS), Non Government Organizations (NGOs) and other UN agencies. With National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) as the coordinating agency; the program has worked through both co-curricular and curricular formats. The co-curricular approach works through the three national school systems - Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) and Kendriya Vidyalaya

UNFPA recently released a report on the oncurrent evaluation of the Adolescence Education in India from 2010-2011. A total of 21,967 students from various government and private schools in five states of Punjab, Orissa, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh participated in the concurrent evaluation programme, while 1,000 teachers and 200 school principals also took part. 

Adolescent boys and girls in the age group of 14-18 constituting of 19,666 AEP-exposed students and 2,301 non-AEP students, 1,000 teachers and 200 school principals were drawn from 200 schools in five different states across India for this exercise.

The report suggested that the AEP has contributed in developing life skills of the students exposed to it. The programme has also contributed towards improving students' attitudes on several parameters that includes taboos associated with physical changes and issues related to sexual harassment and discrimination towards HIV-positive persons and their children.  Moreover, a higher proportion of AEP students, as compared to non-AEP, had knowledge about physical changes that take place during adolescence, especially with regard to menstruation.

However, only 31 percent students from schools with AEP and 20 percent non-AEP were found to be equipped with comprehensive knowledge about HIV and AIDS. Knowledge on methods that can prevent both HIV and pregnancy (male and female condoms) was found to be low among students. The report said, "They need to learn more, including the importance of consent driven voluntary HIV testing protocol, right to confidentiality and related issues".

Besides the NCERT devised AEP, comprehensive sexuality education is also taught through the open schooling as well as through special initiatives, mostly by Non-Government organizations, through special initiatives for out-of-school youth. 

TARSHI (Talking About Reproductive & Sexual Health Issues), a non profit organization that does advocacy for sexuality education and trainings with teachers and facilitators, recently released a book called the Orange Book, meant for teachers as a guide to Sexuality Education. They formerly released publications in the same series - A Red and Blue Book for adolescents and children (respectively) and a Yellow Book for Parents on the same. Prabha Nagaraja, Director of Programmes at TARSHI, said, “From our interactions with teachers while disseminating the Orange Book and in workshops we have conducted with both in-service teachers and trainee-teachers is that we have often found school teachers are over burdened with course work - this coupled with their lack of preparedness to address sexuality related issues in the classroom leads to gaps in information and sexuality education. The need to equip teachers with knowledge and skills is real and urgent I believe”.

The YP Foundation (TYPF), with support from Plan India and UNESCO, carried out youth led consultations with 287 in-school and at risk adolescents and young people across five states to obtain their inputs and recommendations on HIV prevention, AIDS education and Sexuality Education in 2011. One of the key issues raised by the participants was the unwillingness and inability of teachers to address sexuality related topics such as anatomy and reproduction in classes.

The UNFPA evaluation also reported of a considerable knowledge gap that exists between the teachers and the students. Information and communication gaps aside, they were lags even in the teachers’ knowledge where a third of teachers of both types of schools did not have comprehensive knowledge of mode of transmission of HIV virus and pregnancy-related issues.
Some of the key recommendations from the TYPF consultations were towards the need for greater sensitization by medical professionals towards HIV positive youth and removing the stigma attached to them accessing health services. Specifically, addressing violence against women in life skills trainings and relationship negotiations among women and men was considered upmost essential.

These recommendations can be easily correlated to the UNFPA evaluation report that noted, "It is worrisome that a considerable proportion of teachers justify wife- beating while 43 per cent of students said wife-beating can be justified by certain circumstances."

Gopika Bashi (Project Manager at TYPF) who works manages the advocacy for their Peer Education Programme commented, “In all the states where we had conducted our consultations, no one had even heard of AEP.  At TYPF, we’re working to improve AEP content by connecting it directly to young people’s needs and practices and increasing the involvement of the youth in devising the programme that is ultimately meant for their benefit. Moreover, we want to broaden the implementation of life skills and adolescence education to the many more young people who are not in schools or any education institutions especially young women, who with their lack of exposure to information are greatest at risk.”

Although the UNFPA report has a mix of positive indicators in knowledge and attitude as well as some alarming truths about the scenario, it is a milestone achievement of its kind in public health and education in India. Call it by any name, but talking about physical, mental, social and sexual growth with the youth can no longer be shunned to shame.

Do you agree that young people have a right to knowledge in the interest of their safety, health and all round development?