Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow University will introduce a diploma and certificate course from the new academic session on “garbh sanskar”, which will teach its students about motherhood, ANI reported on Saturday.

The course will include lessons on what a pregnant woman should eat, wear, how she should behave, and keep herself fit. The course will also teach students about the kind of music suitable for pregnant women, and is reportedly aimed at generating employment.

“The step has been taken after state Governor Anandiben Patel, who is also the chancellor of state varsities, proposed that the administration train girls for their prospective role as mothers,” said Durgesh Srivastava, a spokesperson of Lucknow University.

The official added that guidelines had been prepared for the course in which students will be taught about 16 values. “The programme mainly emphases on family planning and nutrition value to be taken by pregnant women. Various workshops will be organised under this new course.”

The university’s Vice-Chancellor Professor AK Rai said the curriculum had been divided into several sections. “These lay emphasis on covering all aspects that help women gain knowledge about the right conduct from the time she conceives till the time she delivers a baby,” he told The Times of India.

During a convocation address last year, Patel had said that Abhimanyu from the epic Mahabharata had learnt warfare while he was in his mother’s womb. She had claimed that an institute in Germany had implemented such a course, adopting the Mahabharata theory, according to The Times of India. The governor had also noted that no formal education was provided to women on pregnancy-related topics.

Meanwhile, the university’s former Vice-Chancellor Professor Roop Rekha Verma noted that teaching such a course to women would assert that “only women have motherhood responsibility”. She said that such a belief was the main cause of discrimination, and added that a course on economic empowerment would have been better.