A day after Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the Left dispensation was not going to decide on children's school uniforms, one of the state’s oldest boys only government school in Thiruvananthapuram district on Thursday, August 25 turned mixed with some of its first batch of girl students attending class wearing gender neutral uniforms. 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, a mixed or co-ed one has been welcomed by students of both sexes. 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.
Some of the other girl students, who came from girls only schools, too expressed similar views and said they have joined there as per their wishes. One of the parents of a girl student told media that their daughter had expressed her wish to study along with boys in the school and therefore, they admitted her there. The boys too welcomed the move as they gave a standing ovation to the first batch of girls as they walked in through the school gates. The boys said they would support the decision of their new school mates.
Meanwhile, IUML MLA M K Muneer, a known critic of the Left government's gender neutral policy, continued his attack against it by saying that the society and the CPI(M) have not gained the maturity to accept it. Speaking to reporters at Kozhikode, Muneer said that 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 alleged.
He said that the CM's response regarding uniforms came on a query by LDF MLA K K Shailaja, which shows that senior party leaders are also asking from where such a policy has come and who has made it. He also welcomed the removal of some terminology like LGBTQ from the latest education policy of the government, saying that he sees it as a positive step.
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 said 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.
Pinarayi, 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 had said.