Discuss the main objectives of Population Education and point out the measures to achieve them in detail.

Population Education as defined by UNESCO is an educational programme which provides for a study of the population situation of the family, community, nation and the world, with the purpose of developing in the students rational and responsible attitudes and behaviour towards that situation. This is important in the case of India which is expected to surpass China by 2026 as per UN World Population Prospect.

Objectives of Population Education: 

1. Population education aims at assisting the individual to understand the causes and consequences of population phenomena.

2. It enables the individual to understand how a huge population affects the individual and society.

3. It aims at recognizing the causes of demographic phenomena and to enable the people to make changes in order to remove those obstacles for social progress.

4. It enables students to acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to understand the concept of population education.

5. It enables the learner to make a conscious and right decision about the prevailing population situations.

6. Lend a helping hand to the Government to fulfil its population goals.

Measures for Population Education:

Population Education has mainly two dimensions like: to undertake a national level population awareness programme which would be educative utilizing communication media to the utmost. The other is to include and introduce a subject named Population Education in the present school curriculum.

• Training of Teachers: The Asian Regional Workshop held at Bangkok emphasized on pre-service and in-service training of teachers as high priority for a successful implementation of the Population Education programme.

• Awareness programmes through web series like Panchayat, audio visual and conferences at Panchayat level.

Though India has achieved a Total Fertility rate of 2.0, a regular Population Education is the only way out to maintain the current TFR, no Law can replace the significance of Population education amidst the rising population.