Kerala college says no extra ‘sir’ or ‘madam’, solely ‘teachers’

By Express News Service

PALAKKAD:  Close on the heels of a faculty introducing gender-neutral uniform, one other college within the state has determined to cast off gender-specific greetings to handle lecturers. The Senior Basic School in Olassery has turn into the primary college within the state to ask its college students to cease addressing their lecturers as ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’.

The thought was first proposed by a faculty employees, V Sajeev Kumar, stated headmaster H Venugopalan. “We took the decision after holding a meeting of the staff. The parents were also very supportive of the move. It has been implemented as part of introducing the gender neutral concept in our school,” Venugopalan stated. 

The college students slowly have began embracing the change. “Initially, we would overhear some students address the male teacher as ‘sir’. However, they would replace it immediately with ‘teacher’,” the headmaster stated. As many as 300 college students are learning on the government-aided college which has eight male and 9 feminine lecturers. 

Social activist Bobban Mattumantha, who had initiated the marketing campaign to abolish using ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ whereas addressing authorities officers, stated it was time that colleges adopted the idea. He stated he has forwarded a memorandum on this regard to the federal government.  

“The Congress-ruled Mathur panchayat was the first local body in the state to put up a board asking the public to address officials by their designations rather than ‘sir’ or ‘madam’. This would have definitely influenced the Senior Basic School, which is located just a few kilometres away,” stated Bobban Mattumantha. According to him, addressing an individual as ‘sir’ or ‘madam’ is a part of the vestiges of colonialism and must be performed away with. “This is why we approached the government to do away with these words. However, a decision is yet to be taken in this regard,” he stated.

He stated even girls officers just like the district collector are addressed as ‘sir’ in official correspondences. It will probably be attention-grabbing to notice how the transgenders who’re inducted into the federal government companies are addressed, he stated.

Bobban stated that the memorandum to cast off ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ for presidency officers submitted by him has been forwarded by the Higher Education Council to the member secretary for consideration. “As per an RTI response, it will be implemented in schools only after a final decision is taken in this regard,” stated Bobban.