Mixed seating in colleges triggers row in Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram:

Boys and girls sitting together on class benches in college has triggered a row in Kerala, and the state education minister’s statement that he was against the idea has added fuel to the debate.

State education minister P.K. Abdu Rubb said on Tuesday that he did not personally subscribe to the idea of male and female students sitting on the same benches in educational institutions, and that it was alright if they were sitting on chairs.

Rubb said he was not aware of any educational institution where boys and girls shared the same bench, adding that if the institution concerned had no objection, it was possible.

The debate about male and female students sharing a bench was triggered recently when a lecturer at the Farooq College in Kozhikode objected to the practice in his class. Rubb said he had not received any complaint regarding the incident from the college, and that it could not be seen as a matter of gender discrimination.

A lecturer at the Farooq College, Manzoor had sent eight students out of his class for mixed seating, and one of the students who contested the teacher’s action, was suspended from the college. The matter was immediately taken up by media across the state, and the suspended student, K. Dinu was reinstated after he took legal recourse.

Among those who took up cudgels for the students were former minister and Communist Party of India Marxist leader, T.M. Thomas Isaac, and V.T. Balram, MLA.

The Farooq College incident gained further media limelight when another college lecturer in Kozhikode lost his job for making a social media comment about the suspension of the Farooq College student. Shafeeq, a lecturer at the Areekode Science College, was sacked from his college for commenting on the Farooq College incident.

Meanwhile, the mixed seating debate also engulfed the Maharajas College in Kochi. Students objected to the principal’s directive that male and female students need not sit together in the college campus.