Girl students who enrolled into a boys’ school in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday, were appreciative of the school administration turning it into a mixed gender institution. On the other hand, Kerala government pulled back from its gender-neutral and gender-inclusive initiatives after backlash from Muslim outfits.
As many as 12 girls enrolled for Class 11-equivalent plus one at the Government Model Boys Higher Secondary School at Chalai, in Thiruvananthapuram, for this academic year. The decades’ old school—which was a co-ed school about 40 years ago—was bifurcated into boys’ and girls’, as well as a Tamil medium, schools when the number of yearly enrolments increased, and the operations weren’t able to handle it.
This academic year onwards, however, the government had decided to allow girls into the boys’ school as part of its gender-neutrality initiative. A gender-neutral uniform was also introduced in the school this year.
However, many Muslim outfits came out strongly against the initiatives, so much so that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the state Assembly on Wednesday that the government had no plans to impose any gender-neutral activities.
Despite the hemming and hawing by the state government, girls, as well as their parents, who joined the Chalai school on Thursday said they wished such gender-neutral initiatives were implemented at more such educational institutions.
Aziya, one of the girls who took admission in the Chalai school, said that she preferred to study in a mixed-gender school and she had only studied at a girls-only school so far.
Other girls also expressed their similar view and said that studying in co-ed schools would help in developing healthy interaction between boys and girls.
School authorities said that the Parent Teacher Association of the school took the initiative in converting the school to a mixed one and there were no objections.
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