We, and the need of Sex Education in the Schools

Dr. M. C. Jain
M.A. Ph.D. (Psychology)
Ex- Associate Professor (NCERT)

The world is changing so rapidly that we have to strive hard to adjust ourselves to new surroundings and in new pattern of life. Ours is a tradition bound society wherein sex is regarded more or less as a taboo than as a fact of life. To-day our Indian Society is said to be modern only in outward form and remains blissfully content by keeping sex in a ‘hush’ ‘hush’ world. All these days Indians preferred ignorance to knowledge on sex. Sex talk has been shunned and involved in shame all these days. But to-day, if we look around for a while, we find sex appearing in quarters of our life deeply and comprehensively; Sex, today, is considered as a powerful motivating force in publicity and advertisement. Sex is the crux of fitness. Sex is the life and being of the mass produced modern literature. Sex is an integral part of the present day arts and crafts. Sex is an urge in normal human activity. Sex has influenced our attitudes, persists all over, yet sex is considered as a taboo for our students, studying in schools.

Besides these things, social changes are also affecting people of India. Life, to-day, is different from what it was at the beginning of the country. This has been an era characterized by national unrest and mobility. Families have been uprooted and moved from one section of the country to another. People, many a times, live in overcrowded place unstable conditions. The concept of marriage has been revolutionized by the changing role of family and new patterns of relationships. Different cultures and sub-cultures are coming to gather in their varied patterns of sex behavior and family life. Consequently the theory of love, life and family are undergoing tremendous changes. As such our youngsters are impelled to think that many of the restraints put on them by traditional and cultural institutions are out of tune with the changed and changing times and they are proving to be unhealthy and harmful.

Industrialization with great increase of population in urban centers has brought up vast changes in the family life. Women are working outside the home, as a result of which parental control over children is slackening. There is greater individual freedom and less supervision of the young. This is a true fact especially in the cities.

To-day our youngsters are constantly bombarded with the ideas relating to Sex. Youngsters, today, receive education from many sources and at an early age. Mass media communications bring the ideas to child and adult alike. Our films, radio programs, T.V.serials, advertisements, pornographic books and magazines, journals, obscene literatures, dresses, dances , so to say almost all means of information are already competing with one another in causing strong sex-motivation in our young people and alluring them to move towards social disorganization.

All these circumstances have impelled us to think of a need for proper, desirable and healthy sex education to be given to the young generation in the schools