Is this the right co-education?

Co-education is a place where apart from gaining knowledge one gets to interact with the opposite gender, which instils confidence in pupils to easily socialise with the other gender when they come out of the school/college. However, the schools these days have set restrictions for girls and boys.

Students, especially girls, are told not to interact or mingle with boys, maintain distance, dress in a certain way, etc. However, this creates a stigma in both genders and they begin to lack the social skills in addition to misconstrued notions of behaviour.

Preethi (name changed), Class IX student from a popular corporate school in Hyderabad said, "In my school, girls and boys can’t talk to each other from high school. If we talk to each other then we are punished for doing that. We all (boys and girls) are scared to talk to each other in this environment.”

However, schools must realise that co-education is a place where students are taught to overcome their notion of stereotypical gender roles and to make them do that it is important to interact with each other without creating a concept of gender segregation, according to experts.

Nainika, a Class VII student from Delhi Public School shared “We don’t have any such rules imposed in our school. We mingle up with everyone and have a friendly relation with the opposite gender.”

D Sheba, an alumnus of St Andrews High School, said," I am very lucky to have been studied in such a school, our teachers always taught to respect the opposite gender. Yes, there were rules in school but there was never a rule that students should not interact with the opposite gender and that's the reason today I am bold enough to take a stand on things that do not support gender equality."

Speaking about how her co-ed school and junior college treated her, Anusha Amuda, a degree student, said “My school was never against girls and boys interacting with each other, in fact, we happened to have interactive sessions that helped me to perform best at school. But when it came to my junior college, which is a popular corporate college, I found that it was way different than my school. We were asked to stay away from boys and the college also had a separate walkway for boys and girls. The lecturers at my college always felt that girls are inferior to boys, which affected me negatively. It made all the girls in the college feel that we weren’t capable of doing things.”

Certainly, girls are affected more often in the case of misguided rules in co-ed educational institutes. While it is the teachers who impose such rules; there are also those who feel it’s important to let students mingle.

Talking about why co-education is important John Ramesh, a teacher from Meridian school said, “As a teacher, I do not feel right to differentiate between a girl and boy. All children are equal and talented. It depends on how the children have been trained to cope with the society; it is good that they get trained to mingle with the opposite gender early in life and lack of it will create a sudden change when they go out of school/college. I am against this concept of gender segregation as it affects the behaviour of a child.”

Sometimes parents are also hand in glove with the school when it comes to imposing such rules. Parents believe that their children would get carried away and get into situations that can put them in danger if such restrictions are not in place. Schools and colleges should be a learning place for students where everyone is taught to deal with the opposite gender with consideration instead of separating them and restricting them to interact with each other. The advantage of a co-ed school or college is that students learn to respect the opposite gender.

Swetha Rapolu, a teacher from Geetanjali School, said “Our school is co-ed and we do not have rules set up in our school that restrict girls and boys to talk to each other. If there are schools implementing such rules I do not think that they know the value system of co-education. The whole concept of co-education is to mingle with the opposite gender so that they know how to deal with situations in the future.”

Concurring with Swetha, D Holt, Head Master of St Marks Progressive School said, “I am strictly against schools that impose rules and restrict opposite gender to interact with each other. At certain age in a few schools they put girls and boys separately and impose strict rules and I am not up for it because these children grew up together right from their KG in the same way we grow up in house together; the only difference is in the house you have parents and here at school you have teachers and so they know how to respect each other unless and until they are diverted. If you ask the students to be away from the other gender they become inquisitive and divert their mind in a negative way.”

“I studied in all-girls school and at home, it was only my father and I lost him very soon. I never knew how to interact with the opposite gender and in the same way when my sons were enrolled into a co-ed school after studying in all-boys school they also felt hesitant to interact with the opposite gender,” she

Shalini, a parent, said, “I have enrolled my children in a co-ed school so that they become confident and know how to conduct themselves in society, but sadly my children here are taught not to talk with the opposite gender and if they did so they would be fined. I ask the management why such rules are being applied in a co-ed school and how do they think it would benefit them.”