Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, May 26:

Senior government officials and educationists today emphasised on the need of proper homework and extreme care before introducing sex education in school and college curriculum. Introducing sex education in the curriculum needs proper homework, as the issue is a sensitive one, they said at an interaction on Necessity and possibility of sex education in Nepal. The interaction was held to discuss the ways in which sex education could be introduced in school curriculum and to analyse the causes of the failure of sex education in Nepal.

"The issue is sensitive. Even the teachers consider it a taboo. Still, according to the need of the time, we are committed to introduce sex education in school and college curriculum, but proper homework is a must," said Jagannath Awa, director general of the Curriculum Development Centre. Sarad Joshi, chief of the Population Unit at the Ministry of Education and Sports, laid emphasis on training the teachers for providing better sex education. "We cannot expect quality education from untrained manpower, so it is extremely necessary to train them," he said.

Joshi also informed that a foreign donor agency has shown interest to fund a project aimed at training teachers on sex education. "Sex is still considered a taboo and dealt with extreme dogmatism," said litterateur and lecturer Puskar Lohani. He claimed that the school teachers skip topics on sex, which are covered in the school curriculum.