Interdiscplinary Essay

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Armaan Boparai

English 11

Mrs. Lauren Gray

6 May 2015

Interdisciplinary Essay

Overpopulation is one of the major problems in India these days; according to the Indian census carried out in 2011; the population of India was exactly 1,210,193,422, this is the second most populous country in the world after India. Likewise, the number of sexually transmitted diseases in Indian teens has also risen at an alarming rate over the past few years, it has been said that “STD cases jumped from one to 4.9 percent over the past four years […] with diseases such as HIV, Cyanea acuminate, herpes genitals and secondary syphilis”(Aswathy 3). Teens abstaining from sex until marriage would reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, thus reducing the overall population, also people having sex with only one partner would reduce the chances of STD’s being transmitted to different people. Since teaching all of sex education would require a lot of time and resources, it would be beneficial for Indian schools to rather focus on mainly teaching abstinence. Abstinence is the only 100% efficient method of preventing pregnancy and STD’s, as it means not having any kind of sexual play with a partner, this would be a good solution to controlling the overpopulation and reducing the transmission of STD’s. Therefore teaching sex education, mostly abstinence in Indian schools would help reduce the population and control the widespread STD’s.

        In India, private schools are free to choose weather to include sex education in their curricula. The private schools affiliated with the CBSE board of education are required to have some form of sex education in their curricula, most of the times as a minor subject. However, such private schools affiliated with the CBSE board of education are minorities as out the 1.6 million schools in India only around 16225 are affiliated with CBSE. In 1999, 53% of the Indian population under five was malnourished, and 37% had no access to water (The Earth Times 2). As of research done by the Associate Press, fifteen million people in Bombay have sidewalks as their beds. Now, sixteen years later these numbers have only become higher as the population has kept on rising. Also STD cases have jumped from one to 4.9 percent over the past four years. Therefore in order for India to survive the next few years it must start teaching abstinence and sex education to

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its youth. Teaching abstinence does not require a lot of time, as it is mainly common sense and talking about the different types of diseases caused by unsafe sex. However a full sex education course on the other hand is lengthy and has many topics, which are irrelevant to overpopulation and STD’s. Also abstinence can be taught by almost any adult teacher, however a complete sex education course could only be taught through a qualified physical education teacher or a nurse “At junior and senior high schools sex education is reproduction education with an emphasis on menstruation and vernal disease. This teaching may be […] lectures by a physician or a school nurse” (Malfetti 111). In India, many people are against teaching sex education in schools since they feel that it encourages young people to have sex at an earlier age, however studies done by the WHO (World Health Organization) have shown that sex education rather delays the start of sexual activity.

Teaching abstinence would help reduce population as teens abstaining from sex until marriage would reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, thus reducing the overall population. After marriage most couple’s would only produce the number of children they can afford, for an average Indian couple this would be about 1-2 child as “there are almost 220.1 million people in India are below the poverty line, that is almost 25% of the total population”(Wakefield 3).  “In a country like India […] rural girls are not permitted to attend school after menarche. Adolescent boys and girls rarely have an opportunity to get to know each other, or to interact with each other socially, or even in group situations.”(Capoor 22).  In India, rural girls not being permitted to attend school after menarche makes them a target of child marriage as the legal age of marriage in India is just 18 years. Therefore such cases of child marriage give rise to unwanted pregnancies as eventually the husband and wife file for divorce and there is no one willing to look after the children. This then leads to an increase in the overall population. Also such segregation among boys and girls makes it harder for sex education to be taught to both genders under one roof.  Due to this sex education being targeted more towards males than females would make it more effective as firstly the females are generally not allowed to attend school after menarche, and secondly targeting only one gender would work well with all the gender segregation. Sex education being targeted more towards boys does not mean that girls do not have to learn it, rather it means that it should be taught to both genders, however the boys would get a little more time as they

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are allowed to attend school until grade 12. Targeting sex education towards one gender would still make it possible for it to achieve its goal of reducing the population since if the males chose to abstain from sex then there would be no way that the females could produce an offspring on their own. Girls and Boys in Indian schools are extremely segregated, thus taking about such topics to both genders under one roof would get extremely awkward for both the students and the teacher. This is generally one of the common reasons why sex education fails to prevail when taught in Indian schools. An example of this would be St. Xavier’s college in Ranchi where there are separate staircases for boys and girls. Also in MES College Bangalore classroom have been divided into two different parts in order to prevent any interaction among the male and female students. Such conditions in schools make it impossible for sex education to be taught to both genders less than one roof. Therefore targeting boys would be a good method to teach sex education successfully with all the gender segregation going on these days. Earlier, Indian schools used to have a higher ratio of boys to girls compared with girls to boys, however now this ratio of boys to girls is almost even. As a greater ratio of boys to girls would have caused a problem in teach sex education since sex education is an extremely sensitive topic and the greater the number of people, the lesser the efficiency of learning. “In 1991, the figure [of girls and boys] was 947 girls to 1000 boys, Ten years later it had fallen to 927 girls for 1000 boys” (Gupta 1). Whereas now-a-days there is an equal number of boys and girls in almost every Indian school. “As of 2001, the ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary education in India was 79.48%, however in 2008 this ratio was 94.85%” (Barrientos, 1). Therefore a smaller group of students to target would make learning much more efficient and easier.