Minister Rabb disapproves of girls, boys sitting close in classroom

Reacting to the allegations of “gender-segregation” in Kozhikode’s prestigious Farook College, education minister PK Abu Rabb said, “I, as a minister and at a personal level, do not approve of boys and girls sitting together”.

“Personally and also as a minister, I don’t feel good about boys and girls sitting close in class rooms, ” he said.

Reiterating the line of the college management, the minister said: “The parents of students studying in the college appreciate the distance between boys and girls being maintained”. “At the same time, they can sit so using chairs”. They can sit next to each other in the same bench, if the institutions and students do not have any complaint.

An aided college lecturer in Malappuram was dismissed from service recently for allegedly supporting through a Facebook comment the students of Farooq College who are protesting against the gender discrimination.

Dinu V, a first-year postgraduate student of Farooq College has been suspended indefinitely, for questioning the college over its policy of segregating female and male students.

Though all the others complied, Dinu refused to do so saying he had not committed any crime, following which he was suspended.

He moved the Kerala High Court which stayed his suspension. The student, in his petition, pointed out that the strength of the class is 130 and two students who came to class late had seats vacant only in a bench where three girl students were seated. Everywhere else they are sitting separate, be it in buses.

The issue had created widespread protest in the college.