Introduction

Population education which emerged as an educational innovation in response to population problems only about four decades ago, is now being experimented in over a hundred countries of the world in non-too-uniform a manner. It has been introduced in the education systems of different countries as an important component of the multi-pronged strategy employed to help nations attain the goals of population stabilisation and sustainable development. Very few educational programmes have matched its pace of expansion and adopted such varied conceptual frameworks and strategies of curriculum transaction. Perhaps no other educational concept has experienced such frequent changes in its framework and been subjected to so many misunderstandings as the concept of population education. This has been so because of not only the nature of the context in which it emerged but also its newness and its complex characteristics.

The Context

The concept of population education emerged in the context of population and development - the two most pressing issues before humankind today. Both are closely interrelated and both encompass a number of complex factors. Viewed as an epiphenomenon of the process of development, population issues have aroused widespread concern among almost all the members of the comity of nations. There have been undaunted endeavours to accelerate the pace of socioeconomic development through the instrumentalities of science and technology and to secure distributive justice for the people through different institutional mechanisms. But those are confronted with some basic population related questions of how many people are going to inhabit the earth, how they are to be supported and enabled to make their contributions to development efforts, what they are going to bequeath to posterity and how long they are going to be sustained by the natural and human resource base. The rapid population growth and the concomitant problems of poverty, lack of adequate health and educational facilities, malnutrition, non-fulfilment of even the basic needs of a vast majority of the populace, paucity of employment opportunities, dwindling natural resources and consequent environmental degradation constitute critical dimensions of the present population and development phenomena. It is also pertinent to note that the population phenomenon today embraces issues beyond development. While the size, growth, composition and distribution of population have a close bearing on socioeconomic development, the population related issues also bring forth concerns for the "carrying capacity" of biological and ecological system and the future of mankind.

Need for Population Education

It has been gradually realized that since the interrelationship between population and development is highly complex and population problems are multidimensional, it will not yield to any single solution. It is basically related to the developmental needs of a nation and its people. Demographic trends influence, and are influenced by, the level of development and the quality of life of the people. The population situation of any nation largely depends on the demographic behaviour of its people. Changes in the demographic profile of a nation depend largely on attitudes and behaviours of individuals in respect of population and development issues. The demographic behaviour is to a great extent informed by population socialization, a process by which people acquire norms, values, attitudes and belief systems in respect of population related issues and which is embedded within the larger complexes of social practices reflecting the society’s internal logical system. This process is greatly influenced by education which enables the individual to know the phenomenon of population change and its consequences. It is commonly observed in many countries that the knowledge of the simple facts of population change, let alone the complex interrelationships with other parameters, is very low even among educated people. It is precisely because of these complexities that population education has emerged as an integral part of the multi-pronged strategy employed to solve contemporary population problems that face the nations.

Emergence of Population Education

The idea that population education can play a potential role in addressing population problems, was first mooted in Sweden in 1935. The Population Commission of Sweden, which expressed its concern on the declining rates of birth in that country, recommended a comprehensive and truly vigorous educational campaign to clarify population related issues aimed at influencing the fertility behaviour of individuals. A similar view was expressed in the United States during 1937-38. Since the birth rate continued to decline and population seemed to be dwindling, it was suggested that population studies be included as a content area in the school curriculum. However, nothing noteworthy happened during the next two decades.

It was in the 1960s that the matter was seriously reconsidered in the United States. Warren S. Thompson and Philip M. Hauser published papers in march 1962 issue of Teachers College Record, Columbia University reiterating the inclusion of population content in the school curriculum. Interestingly, they made such recommendations in a completely different context, as the perception of population problem had changed during 1960s and the concern had shifted from decline in growth rate to rapid population growth in both the industrialized and developing worlds. In the fifties and sixties, therefore, efforts were initiated in a number of countries to arrest population growth; and motivational activities for adults provided information about the consequences of high birth rate. The information, education and communication "IEC" or information education and motivation "IEM’ strategy was employed in family planning programmes to achieve the desired objectives. However, in the developing world the "IEC" activities of family planning programmes were not always as successful as had been expected. It was in this context that the potential of education was realised in order to overcome deeply entrenched traditional learning that influenced demographic behaviour of the people. The school education, in particular, was considered effective for achieving this objective. However, the nomenclature of population education was given to this educational innovation at a later date. Sloan Wayland was the first to use the term "population education".

The first national endeavour to evolve and concretise the concept of population education was made in India in 1969 and then in the Philippines and the Republic of Korea in 1970. The Workshop on Population and Family Education sponsored by the UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Asia held in September 1970 at Bangkok, was a land-mark in the history of population education. It not only facilitated the identification of objectives of population education, the selection of suitable contents and the consideration of strategies for introduction of population education into formal and non-formal education systems but also resulted in the launching of national population education programmes by many countries in Asia. Similar activities were initiated by UNESCO Regional Offices in Santiago (Latin America and Caribbean) and Dakar (Africa South of the Sahara). The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), previously known as United Nations Fund for Population Activities, played a vital role in appreciating the potential of population education and providing funds for national programmes from the late sixties onwards.

Population education emerged as an educational innovation during 1970s and various countries initiated activities to introduce it into their ongoing education systems. The recommendations of the World Population Plan of Action adopted at the 1974 World Population Conference held in Bucharest, also encouraged nations to adopt the strategy of population education. The Plan of Action recommended that "the Governments should consider making provision, in both the formal and non-formal educational programmes, for informing their people on the consequences of existing or alternative fertility behaviour for the well-being of the family, for the educational and psychological development of children and for the general welfare of society, so that an informed and responsible attitude to marriage and reproduction will be promoted".

In India, the Family Planning Association for the first time sent a Memorandum to the State Government of Maharashtra in 1968 recommending that education in population dynamics should be made a part of school curriculum. However, the idea of population education was crystallised in the National Seminar on Population Education organised in Bombay in August 1969. It recommended that population education should be introduced into curriculum of schools and colleges. The Seminar made an attempt to define population education in the context of Indian situation, but more importantly, expressed the national consensus for introducing this educational innovation in the education system of the country.

Population Education and other Concepts

In the initial phase of its evolution, there were several misconceptions regarding population education, and some of those still continue to affect its proper understanding. Population education was popularly equated with family planning or family planning education, primarily because of its emergence in close association with the "IEC" or "IEM’ activities of the family planning programmes. It was also regarded as a euphemism for sex education and family life education, as in some countries the concerned programmes approached population issues in terms of sexuality. Population education was also equated with population studies, and even now both the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, because the core of the knowledge base of population education, (the basic core content upon which the population education curriculum is developed), contained the elements of population studies. While population education is none of these "educations" in the true sense, it draws contents from all those educational areas the objectives of which are mutually supportive. It is necessary, therefore, to discuss the nature and objectives of certain related areas, as it may help in proper understanding of the distinction and complementarity between population education and them.

Family Planning

In many countries population programmes were initiated as family planning programmes which had a special "IEC" or "IEM" component. This component came to be popularly known also as family planning education. In some countries this campaign was launched in a very narrow sense aimed at creating awareness about controlling birth by using contraceptives. It helped in the supply and use of contraceptives to eligible couples. But over the years family planning also has adopted a broad orientation. It is now increasingly being regarded more than an intervention to promote the use of contraception. It is a means of caring for the health of mother and child, enhancing the quality of families by regulating and spacing child birth, raising the age at marriage and improving the position of girls and women, helping sub-fertile couples to beget children and providing counseling for parents and potential parents. Despite these changes, the family planning education continues to address itself primarily to adults and youth, and its approach also remains predominantly prescriptive, explaining the oversimplified dogmatism of assertions like "small family is a happy family". Population education shares all the content of the family planning education and also focuses on its objectives. But the scheme of contents of population education is broader and its specific objectives are more varied than those of the family planning education. Both have basic differences in their approach. Population education does not follow prescriptive and didactic approaches. Whereas family planning education aims at conveying specific messages of family size and quality of life issues, population education focuses on influencing attitude and behaviour of individuals and developing basic thinking and decision-making skills in them.

Sex Education

Sex Education is an educational programme designed to provide learners with adequate and accurate knowledge about human sexuality in its biological, psychological, socio-cultural and moral dimensions. It largely, though not exclusively, focuses on the individual self-awareness, personal relationships, human sexual development, reproduction and sexual behaviour. It also covers the anatomy and physiology of reproductive systems, physical, emotional and psychological changes during puberty and conception, pregnancy, and birth. It deals with sexual behaviour, sex roles and sexually transmitted diseases. Whereas population education deals with many of these contents, it focuses on their interrelationships with population issues and also on population processes other than fertility.

Family Life Education

Closely related to sex education, the family life education is an educational process designed to assist young people in their physical, social, emotional and moral development, as they prepare themselves for adulthood, marriage and parenthood. It deals with issues like ageing as well as social relationships in the sociocultural context of family and society. It provides an opportunity to the learners to study family relationships and peer relationships. It does not simply deal with physiology and anatomy of reproduction and human sexuality. While population education includes these concerns in its scheme of content, it also covers many other issues that are beyond the scope of the family life education.

Population Studies

Population studies is the body of knowledge, concepts and theories, which describe and attempt at explaining the dynamics of human populations and their relationships with social, cultural, economic, political and biological environments. It focuses on population issues related to the demographic processes of fertility, mortality and migration. It also covers components such as population size, age and sex composition, its spatial distribution and socioeconomic characteristics.Population studies as a general body of knowledge, therefore, has made substantial contribution to the knowledge base of population education. During the initial years of the evolution of population education it was thought to be the be-all and end-all of population education, and the curriculum framers were expected to perform the simple task of including and hierarchically arranging the facts, theories and concepts of population studies into the scheme of content of population education. But over the years, the conceptual framework of population education has broadened to incorporate those components which do not belong to population studies but to other disciplines and professional fields, such as life sciences, medical sciences, social sciences, pedagogy, psychology and so on. Moreover, population related attitudes, behaviour and decisions, rather than the internal logic of population studies are characteristically the major concerns of population education.

Population Education

Population education differs from all the areas delineated above in that its need arose under special historical circumstances and some typical contemporary issues. Family planning education was initiated with a view to conveying specific messages focussed on the need to control population growth. Sex education originally developed in response to the concern for changing sexual mores and increasing incidence of deviant sexual behaviour, venereal diseases and out of wedlock pregnancies. Family life education grew out of a recognition of the growing evidence of family instability and disintegration. Population studies evolved, not as a separate discipline but as an interdisciplinary body of knowledge by bringing together facts, theories and concepts based on the research studies conducted by the specialists of different disciplines and professional fields for explaining various facets of population phenomenon. Population education emerged as an educational response to the concern for population problems emanating from the changing inter-relationship between population and development.

It is primarily because of the context in which it emerged that population education, by its very nature, has been treated as a culture and region specific concept. Its definition in one country or region differs from that in the other. The numerosity of definitions is also the result of the constant changes being effected in the concept by including new areas of concern based on the experiences of international regional and national experimentation. Moreover, the definitions have been construed in various ways. Population education has been defined by describing the nature of activity or by stating objectives or contents or by spelling out behavioural outcomes. However, not all the definitions are actually different from one another; there is a substantial commonality among them with certain differences in the emphasis on some aspect or the other.

Population education is broadly defined as an educational intervention aimed at helping individuals in understanding the interrelationship between population and development, in appreciating the determinants and consequences of population processes and changes, in assessing the possible actions that they and their respective families and communities can take to modify these processes and in carrying out selected actions. It is a part of total social learning process and based on the premise that an educational intervention which helps the learners define problems and search for solutions will have greater impact than the prescriptive programme that employs only assertions.