No Compromise on Gender Justice: Kerala Education Minister

Vinod Kakumanu
Oct. 4, 2022, 11:26 a.m.

A three-day National Consultative workshop was organized in Thiruvananthapuram recently. The topic of the conference was “Towards a gender audit framework for school education”, and it was organized by the Kerala State Council of Educational Research and Training.

After inaugurating the workshop, the Kerala state Education Minister categorically said that there will be no compromise on gender justice in the education sector. The school curriculum revision would adhere to basic principles of the Constitution. He also addressed protests against the second Khader Committee report, saying that the report has not been understood properly, and there is a deliberate bid to create confusion. Article 14 of the constitution talked about equality, and gender justice becomes important in this backdrop, and the Minister spoke against propaganda by a section of people that sharing of benches by boys and girls could lead to trouble. Article 15 of the constitution forbade discrimination based on religion, caste, sex, etc, and this should be reflected in curriculum and text books.

Members of the curriculum revision committee said that they will not just be looking at text books and curricula alone, but also on related aspects such as teacher education. Gender is also socially constructed, and society gives importance to certain tasks and behaviour based on genders, and deconstructing that would be part of the workshop. The state is also going for a gender audit of all textbooks from Class 1 to 12, and then go beyond text books to ensure that ideas of gender equality and gender justice are part of school education systems.