The Supreme Court on Friday (February 21, 2025) told the Centre to make the concept of sexual equality between men and women a part of school syllabus.
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The Supreme Court on Friday (February 21, 2025) told the Centre that the concept of sexual equality, moral and ethical training of how men should behave with women respectfully must become a part of school syllabus.
“Moral and ethical training, etiquette must be made part of the school syllabus. There must be a module to inculcate this in schools at a very early age for children… Now, schools do not have moral education. Certain schools have it, but the class is usually cancelled and some other subjects are taken,” Justice B.V. Nagarathna, heading a Bench comprising Justice S.C. Sharma, observed.
Justice Nagarathna said equality between daughters and sons must start at home. But, instead, discrimination starts at home with the parents.
“Parents are more focused on restraining their daughters and not their sons. Discrimination from go from our vocabulary,” the judge said.
The court was hearing a writ petition filed by petitioner-in-person and senior advocate Aabad Ponda, who said the root cause for the surge in rape cases and incidents of crimes against women was the lack of education at the basic level about equality among the sexes.
‘Tremendous strain’
“Fifty per cent of our population, women, are living under tremendous strain and insecurity. There is a rise in the misogynistic and barbaric attitude towards women. Education must start at the smallest level to change the attitude towards women,” Mr. Ponda submitted.
Justice Nagarathna agreed that many social circles still believed that a woman neither belonged to her parents’ home nor the in-laws’ home after marriage. Awareness that a woman was independent, her own person and commanded respect and equal treatment in society must be inculcated in society, the judge noted.
Justice Nagarathna said environmental science started being taught in schools as a subject on the orders of the Supreme Court. Likewise, moral education must become a part of the school syllabus.
The court ordered the government to place on record any measures taken by it so far to include the concept of sexual equality in school syllabus.
Mr. Ponda’s plea also recommended using advertisements and the visual media for conveying zero tolerance to rape.
“Awareness of the stringent laws against rape must be advertised in cinema halls and in the media. There is no point if the person knows about these laws after he is sentenced to 20 years or is about to be hung to death,” Mr. Ponda argued.
He said knee-jerk reactions like making punishments harsher after a gruesome crime was hardly a solution.
The petition said efforts have to be made to bridge the gap between the law and the understanding and dissemination of the law to the public.
“The need of identifying the real cause of this crime is the first requirement. Once this is done, the next step would be to try to find measures to revolutionise the male mindset in the country amongst a large portion of the populace and instill in them the fear of the law,” the petition said.
Published – February 21, 2025 08:07 pm IST