HIV row: SCERT to rectify goof-up in textbook
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After three years of teaching a goof-up to Class X state syllabus students, the State Council Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Kerala has finally decided to rectify the grave error in the textbook. A mention in the textbook that premarital/extramarital sexual contact as one of the reasons for getting HIV had triggered a row in the state.
The error figured in the biology textbook published in 2016. In chapter 4 (Keeping Diseases Away, page 60), a science table cites premarital/extramarital sexual contact as one of the reasons for the spread of HIV. With the study material finding itself in the eye of a storm, SCERT has come out with the clarification the said mistake has been rectified in the newly revised edition for the 2019-20 academic year.
“The mistake, which is being ridiculed on social media, is there from 2016. As soon as it came to our notice, we asked the teachers to rectify it in the classes itself. Now the textbook to be distributed in 2019-20 by Kerala Books and Publication Society comes with the correction,” said J Prasad, director, SCERT. At the same time, the doctor community which largely circulated the said excerpt on social media said instead of mentioning premarital/extramarital sexual contact, the content should have been limited to the practice of unsafe sex. Director of Public Instruction Jeevan Babu told Express, “Though I came to know about the said mistake through social media, I am yet to get into its details.” He further said he would inquire into the matter.
Teachers from Kozhikode, Kollam, Wayanad, Kottayam, Thiruvananthapuram and Idukki prepared the textbook and they were assisted by experts from Mar Ivanios College, University College, MG College and others.
Controversial lesson
It was while mentioning the ways in which HIV spreads that the controversial content was mentioned. Under the head of ‘Write your inferences in the science diary by analysing the illustration’, it has been mentioned, by sharing the needle and syringe used by AIDS patients through body fluids, from HIV-infected mother to foetus and through premarital/extramarital sexual contact