As schools in the Kerala state reopened on Monday, June 3, after a month-long summer vacation, the textbooks, with pictorial representations of family members cutting across genders involved in cooking and other kitchen chores, are drawing widespread attention. This was stated in a report by PTI.
The innovative textbooks caught wide attention after state General Education Minister V Sivankutty shared a page from one such textbook via a Facebook post on June 1.
The minister shared the page from the Malayalam medium textbook of Class III which shows the father sitting on the floor grating coconut while the mother is seen cooking dishes.
In the English textbook, the father could be seen cooking snacks for the daughter.
Teachers and students wholeheartedly welcomed the gender equality concept included in textbooks and hailed it as a "positive" step.
Pavithra Krishna, a lower primary student of a government school in nearby Vithura, said he was amused looking at the pictures in her new Malayalam textbook.
"I was turning the pages of the new book and was surprised to see the pictures of a father scraping coconut in the kitchen. I showed this to my father and asked why he doesn't do this at home," she told PTI.
Sindhu, the teacher of a state-run school in the capital city, said it would surely help in spreading a positive message among students, cutting across genders.
"This is very positive. Knowingly or unknowingly, there is a general impression in our society that cooking and housework are the sole responsibilities of women," said Sindhu to PTI.
The teacher further said women are the ones who usually toil the most when it comes to household duties.
