The Madhya Pradesh Government has decided to end the Adolescence Education Programme (AEP), two years after it was introduced to classes IX and XI, saying “sex education has no place in Indian culture”.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told top education department official at a meeting late on Thursday to stop the programme. “We will debate about its merits later,” Chouhan said at the end of the meeting that lasted barely 20 minutes, an official who was present at the meeting told The Indian Express today.

The source said some officials tried to convince the CM about the merits of the programme and why the National AIDS Control Society and Unicef had introduced it in the first place, but Chouhan “avoided any discussion on the issue”. Instructions (DPI), a state government body, defended the AEP when the Congress and its student wing NSUI recently protested the use of graphic anatomical pictures in the kit meant for teachers of the course.

Chouhan’s decision yesterday came after a meeting he had with Deenanath Batra, chairman of Shiksha Bachao Samiti, an RSS body formed to “correct distortions in history books”.

Batra had advised the CM against sex education in schools, and was in turn told that yoga should be included in curriculum in place of sex education.

Nineteen districts were covered in the first phase of the AEP programme, and 11 more were added in the current year. “We were planning to cover the remaining 18 districts in the next academic year,” said an official associated with AEP, describing how the directorate was ready with proposal to start Red Ribbon Clubs in schools to create awareness about AIDS.

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