As the government looks to tackle the menace of crimes against women, HRD minister Smriti Irani said on September 1 steps would be taken to make gender sensitisation a core feature of educational curricula.
Speaking on the occasion of the foundation day of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in New Delhi, Irani said, “Through textbooks, we will endeavour to ensure that gender sensitisation is an issue which is at the core of our curriculum and that is being started from today.”
She said NCERT is dedicating the entire year to gender sensitisation and inclusion of gender subjects in academic curricula.
NCERT council has already undertaken an exhaustive exercise of analysing textbooks from the perspective of gender.
While NCERT has already carried out an analysis of its own textbooks from the gender viewpoint, its department of gender studies has started a similar appraisal of textbooks of the state boards.
The analysis is being done to ensure that there is no gender bias or gender stereotype, said an NCERT official.
The Department of Women Studies of NCERT has been recently renamed as the Department of Gender Studies (DGS).
It has developed material to strengthen gender concerns in three volumes — Perspective on Gender and Society, Gender and Schooling Process and Gender and Women’s Empowerment.
In the light of National Curriculum Framework, 2005, the gender concern has been incorporated into the text material of NCERT in all disciplines in an integrated form.
Women and Child Development minister Maneka Gandhi has said that including gender in the curriculum was an important step as there has been a significant focus on gender equality over the years.