School Education and literacy Department Secretary Aradhana Patnaik on thursday stressed upon elimination of gender discrimination at school and family level, so that the kids of today graduate from universities as civilized adults. She, while addressing a gathering, said that gender discrimination at family and school stages was the root cause of a number of prevailing social evils like child marriage, sexual exploitation and dowry among others in states like Jharkhand.
“Issues like gender remain sensitive for obvious reasons. The kids who get issues like gender discrimination, physical, mental and sexual violence and gender equalities addressed at schools and families from very early stages of their lives have been found much stronger to deal with similar issues in their adulthood, if any,” said Patnaik.
The event Patnaik was speaking in was jointly organised by lEADS, CINI and ICRW, which have been running a programme called Gender Equity Movement in School (GEMS) together since last two years. The event was organised to share experiences of GEMS team in 20 schools of Ranchi and Khunti districts each so far. lEADS Director AK Singh, ICRW Regional Director Ravi Verma, JSCPCR Chairperson Arti Kujur, social activist from Pratham Kumar Katyayni, CINI Assistant Director Ranjan Panda, Randhir Kumar (Tata Steel), Anup Hore (Plan India) and teachers and students of the schools where the GEMS programme tasted success were present at the occasion.
Patnaik also categorically said that the discrimination was not always towards girl child, as wrongly presumed in general. She said that boys remained equally vulnerable in terms of physical, mental and sexual harassment and they needed equal attention of social engineers. “Be it towards a girl or a boy, the discrimination as a whole needs to be worked out as soon as possible.” Praising the idea, she said that programmes like these were need of the hour and the government was there to support GEMS programme in all 40,000 schools of the State whatever the way it could.
AK Singh said at the occasion that the purpose of the event on Thursday was to share the experiences of the team which worked relentlessly since last two years in 40 schools to eliminate gender discrimination, and paradigm change in the behaviour of students who went through the programme.
Extending the notion, Ravi Verma said that the team had to face extreme protest during initial days, as the society as a whole found it extremely difficult to shed its pre-conceived notion about the benefits of gender discrimination. “But after initial persistence from even a couple of teachers, we found them understanding what we were trying them to find out within themselves. We taught them the disastrous outcome of gender discrimination and they understood it in due course,” said Verma. The programme concluded with experiences of the students and teachers about their experiences pre and post GEMS.