Sex education in India still confined to biology books, has experts worried

Tejwinder Anand, Director, Joint Communications, Population Foundation of India, said, "They should look at covering changes happening in the mind and body during adolescence. Menstrual hygiene management, nutrition, consent and violence are concepts that they are exploring as they are growing."

Some Indian schools have incorporated such subjects in their curriculum. However, they are in the minority. Kabir Maan, an educational facilitator, Parwarish, shared that he was abruptly stopped while conducting a session on child sexual abuse in a renowned public school in Delhi. "In the middle of the session, they said no, you can't give this session and that school completely banned us in all of its branches," Maan said.

One big reason for this is that sex education as a subject is not mandated by either the Centre or state government. A state government recently reached out to Swati Jagdish for a small curriculum on sex education.

But there was a rider — create a curriculum without using the term ‘sex.’ That isn’t really possible, she feels.

“We can talk about consent and body autonomy, boundaries without using the word sex. But we have to talk about sex at one point. Because many other subjects related to sexuality health are connected to the act of sex. For example, baby making, How will you explain baby making to a child? You can't keep saying god gave babies and you know it's a miracle,” Swati said.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development's new National Education Policy also made no mention of sex education. However, there are two government-led initiatives — the Adolescence Education Programme by the CBSE and the School Health Programme.

A review of the curricula of these two programmes by the Population Foundation of India found that topics like violence and abuse, sexually-transmitted diseases, gender identities and menstrual irregularities, are inadequately covered. They also skip topics like consent and contraception.

According to experts, the need for sex education has also increased, with more students — both in primary and secondary classes — gaining greater online access, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdowns. "Statistics say children between 8-10 years see some pornographic content. So parents want to know how to guide them. Parents frantically call me and say I know she's watching something, I know he's going through something. My first question to them is have you spoken about sex?" Swati said.

In July, the Kerala High Court said it was time for state authorities to re-examine the sex education imparted in schools. The court made this observation while permitting a 13-year-old rape survivor to terminate her 30-week pregnancy. However, a review is not a guarantee that it will be included.

Experts believe this huge gap in India's educational system could mean bigger problems down the line.