POCSO lessons to be incorporated in school textbooks in Kerala

Kochi: Starting from next academic year, class 5 and 7 students in the state will start learning about POCSO laws. It will be the first time in the country that lessons on POCSO laws will be made part of school curriculum. With this, the efforts of the high court over the last two years will finally bear fruits. 

An order issued by justice Bechu Kurien on August 26, 2022 has led to the current development. The matter was taken up for discussion in the high court for over 70 times in the last two years!

SCERT, NCERT and CBSE were aligned as ‘parties’ by the high court in the ‘matter’. CBSE and NCERT are expected to include POCSO lessons in their textbooks starting from next year.

Shortcomings of sex education

The sex education that is currently being provided through the SCERT and NCERT textbooks have several shortcomings.   

SCERT director Dr RK Jayaprakash opined that intervention of the high court proved crucial in the decision to incorporate POCSO lessons in school textbooks. He also said that a decision would be taken later on whether to introduce the lessons in more classes.

In an order issued in 2022, the high court had also suggested imparting knowledge to students on safe touch, unsafe touch and unwanted touch, rather than merely differentiating them as ‘good touch’ and ‘bad touch’.