Most parents dread imparting sex education to children; they’d rather leave it to the schoolteacher or the textbook. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, though, in a recent Facebook post, has stressed the need for the first lessons of sex education to begin at home. He has also shared an animation short film on sex education brought out by the Women and Child Development Department.
In the post, which has garnered some 10,000 likes and 2,300 shares, the Chief Minister writes about the pitfalls of half-baked, unscientific knowledge that students tend to glean from various sources. Unscientific notions about sexuality are a barrier, he says, to healthy man-woman relationship and building a society based on gender equality. Providing scientific sex education to the younger generation is imperative for the growth of a modern society.
Instead of evading children’s questions about sexuality, parents should provide them with correct information and clear their doubts. If not, children may turn to unscientific sources for answers, and imbibe wrong notions in the process.
Animation film
The three-minute animation short film Let us be frank has been brought out as part of the ‘Namukku Valaram Nannayi Valartham’ responsible parenting campaign of the Women and Child Development Department under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS).
The animation, developed by the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT), is intended to generate a discussion on sex education and how its foundations should be built at home by parents, say ICPS officials. The aspect of how sex education should be provided will be taken up in the next series of videos and materials.
In curriculum
Talks are also on with the Education department to explore how sex education can be included in the curriculum.
Extension clinics in panchayats have been started as part of the parenting campaign recently. Besides the counselling programme under way for students in schools, the department is mulling conducting awareness camps for parents in schools on particular days to take the parenting campaign to them.
