Four months after the Kozhikode Farooq college issue blew up in Kerala, the State Youth Commission has recommended that gender-based seating arrangements for students inside the campus and classrooms must be stopped.
On October 20, a group of first year students were asked to leave the class and warned not to enter the campus till they brought their parents, as the boys and girls had shared benches during their Malayalam language class. Following this, some of them gave an apology and were reinstated, while Dinu Veyil, one among them took forward the protests against inequality inside the campus.
“In the benches placed in college corridors, only boys are allowed to sit. In the canteen, there are separate sections for boys and girls and in between that is the staff section to ensure that we don't break the rules," Dinu had told The News Minute.
As per the The Times of India report now the commission has now suggested that the separate rest zones assigned for boys and girls on the campus need to be dismantled.
There were complaints from the students that management don’t let them any performances of combined groups of girls and boys on art festivals. Now the commission has recommended that the teams comprising both boys and girls shall be formed.
Though the college principal has every right to take steps to ensure discipline in the campus, he has no right to take steps that would curtail the fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution, the panel said, according to ToI.
The report also advised parents who don't want their children to interact with boys to opt for women's colleges.