A boys only government school in Thiruvananthapuram district on Thursday turned mixed with some of its first batch of girl students attending class wearing gender neutral uniforms.
According to the official statement, the first batch of girl students have been inducted in class 11 of the Government Model Higher Secondary School for Boys, Chala, Thiruvananthapuram.
The move to make the school, which was meant only for boys for the last 40 years, mixed or co-ed came a day after Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the Left dispensation was not going to decide on children’s school uniforms.
Some of the new joinees told media that they joined the school as they wanted to study along with boys. “Not in favour of how gender is being construed or taught in society presently. We are supposed to be studying together. So I came here to study like that,” one of the girls said as per the statement.
Further the statement said that M K Muneer, MLA, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) critiqued the government’s move and said first gender discrimination should be removed, then there should be gender sensitisation and gender justice.
“Only after that can we bring such a concept of gender neutrality before a society which lacks maturity. Even the Marxist party is not mature enough for it,” he said.
Meanwhile, state general education minister V Sivankutty, while speaking to the media in the state capital, said that the government never said it will mandatorily or forcibly teach boys and girls together. “The Kerala chief minister had made it clear in the assembly yesterday that the government was not going to impose gender neutral uniforms or mixed schools upon anyone,” Sivankutty said.
He added that local self government institutions, parent teacher associations and the schools decide and implement how things are to be run in their respective educational institutions.
CM Vijayan, on Wednesday, had said in the assembly that the Left dispensation was not going to decide what kind of uniforms children should wear to schools. It was the prerogative of the educational institutions to decide what kind of uniforms girls and boys should wear, he added.
With inputs from PTI
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