Bengal adds ‘Good Touch, Bad Touch’ topic in school books
kolkata: The state Education department has introduced ‘Good Touch, Bad Touch’ in a detailed manner in the school textbook this year.
Four years ago, the matter was introduced, however, from this academic year, three pages have been dedicated to ‘Good Touch, Bad Touch’ in the Health and Physical Education book of class VII.
“We have explained the different aspects through diagrams so that the students can have a very good understanding of the same. The proposal of including this aspect in the school curriculum was proposed by West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights a long time back,” a senior official of the state School Education department said.
Aveek Majumder, Chairman of the Syllabus Restructure Committee said that the matter has been illustrated in such a manner that it becomes easy for children at this level to understand.
An official in the School Education department said that the textbooks of different subjects in schools have already been distributed and the teachers have been trained on how they will explain this aspect to the students.
“We want to ensure that there is no gap among the students when it comes to understanding this aspect of Good Touch, Bad Touch,” the official added.
Moreover, for the first time, an awareness study on the protection of child abuse has also been included in the Health and Physical Education book of class VII.
Earlier this was taught in a lighter vein. Following the gang rape and murder incident of 2012 in Delhi commonly known as the ‘Nirbhaya’ incident, there have been several amendments in the Act related to the protection of child abuse and the punishment for an offence related to the abuse of children has also been made stringent.
“What are the things that can be termed as child abuse, what will be the punishment for child abuse, awareness on the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offence) Act 2012, what will be the responsibilities of the parents have been touched upon in the class VII book,” the official said.
