The State government will not impose any decision to ensure gender neutrality, Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty has said.
Referring to the recent controversy over gender-neutral uniforms, the Minister said here on Wednesday that some schools had on their own implemented such uniforms and this had been welcomed by the public. In such schools, no complaints by students or parents had come to the government’s attention.
The government, he said, did not want to impose any particular type of uniform on students. The school authorities and parent-teacher associations can take a decision. This would be examined by the General Education department, especially if there was any dispute, and only then would the nod for change to gender-neutral uniform be given.
It was recognised that students’ uniform should be comfortable to wear and have general acceptance, he pointed out.
Co-ed schools
The government stance on co-educational schools too was similar, he said. At present, there were 138 government schools and 243 aided schools that were same-sex schools. After the second Pinarayi Vijayan-led government came to power, 21 schools had become co-educational institutions.
Depending on the basic infrastructure and decision of the school PTA and the local body concerned, if a school submitted an application to the department for a shift to co-education, the application would examine the presence of infrastructure and if the co-ed status to a school would result in the closure of a nearby school before giving its nod. No deadline could be set for transforming all schools to co-educational, he said.
Separate seating
On a note on doing away with the practice of seating boys and girls separately inside the classroom at a meeting of the curriculum committee recently, the Minister said he did not find anything objectionable in the proposal.
However, General Education Principal Secretary A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish, who is also chairman of the core committee, was quick to point out that broad-based discussions on 25 focus areas as part of the National Education Policy were being held.
Many opinions were voiced at these discussions, but no decision, for or against on any matter, had been taken.
