The study by the government health department that included 451 students and 8 teachers from Nawalparasi district concluded that both teachers and students are very much uncomfortable with the subject matter. Ten years down the line, the scene, right here in capital, is no different either. [break]
“I try to be as comprehensive and helpful as possible in all chapters I handle except for this one,” says Prativa Mishra, who teaches Environment, Population and Health (EPH) at Green Village School in Kirtipur. “You know it is easier said than done that teachers should be bold enough to teach the subject. In practice, it simply does not work,” she adds.
According to Mishra, cultural and social background of students and herself matters. “As the entire class feels uncomfortable about it, I deliberately escape using the related vocabularies and drawing pictures on the blackboard or discussing it in detail,” she admits.
Realizing the need to disseminate reproductive health education, the school curriculum board incorporated several important chapters including healthy sexual behavior, sexual disorder, reproductive system and adolescent behavior, among others, in EPH books for classes 6 to 9 way back in 1995. And, the newer versions of the books are pretty effective if taught the same way.
However, it is hard to calculate when the teachers and the students would overcome the hesitation and learn the lessons. For instance, another teacher of EPH Laxmi Paudel finds it equally tough to make the students ready for a lecture on the subject, specially girls. “While boys are excited to know each and everything about the subject, girls are very shy, remain quiet and uninterested during the whole period,” the teacher at Bishnudevi Secondary School in Naya Naikap said.
The girls even request her to skip the chapter, saying they would go through it at home by themselves. “Unlike for other chapters in the book, I too feel extremely conscious when this chapter starts,” admits Paudel.
“That is of course a very genuine problem for the teachers considering our social and cultural background,” adds another EPH teacher Rajbhai Maharjan at Vidhya Sadan High School in Lalitpur.
“By now, I am confident to teach the subject but I earned this expertise with much hard work and time,” he adds. In course of teaching the subject, he even penned a series of books on EPH, which are already in use in several schools. “Effective books alone are not enough. I feel health teachers need special orientation and training.”
The situation is very sad, notes educationist Tirtha Khaniya. According to him, it is necessary that sex education be made more intense in the country. “That is the only way to make young boys and girls more understandable and responsible. Their curiosities should be answered not by wrong means but by well informed teachers and materials,” he opines.
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