Sex Education Mandatory In UK From 2011
November 6, 2009 2 Comments
The announcement that sex education will be mandatory for all UK pupils from the age of 15 on is great news. Parents will not be able to opt-out their children unless they are 14 or younger (currently opt-out age is 19!).
This is a great move by the government, but there is still a long way to go.
This is part of a move to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in the UK. These rates
“rose for the first time since 2002, according to the latest figures. There were 41.9 conceptions per 1,000 15 to 17-year-olds in 2007, up from 40.9 the year before. England has the highest rates of teenage mothers in Western Europe.”
Young people who do not go to these classes “will be classed as truants and may be punished by the school.”
Unfortunately, the same arguments are happening all over again. There are many articles in the news where the religious parents say ”they would strongly oppose the move. Shahid Akmal, chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain’s education board, said he would challenge the laws, which he called an imposition.”
These new rules were made in consultation “with parents, young people and faith groups” so they are not taken lightly.
When will people accept the fact that young people both need (and want) more sex education, and give it to them?!
With all the research pointing to the fact that sex education reduces the number of sexual partners, improves contraceptive use, and delays first sex, why do people not accept it?
The argument goes that parents should be the main educator of their children around sex and relationships. What many anti-sex education supporters don’t understand is that people who are for sex education in schools agree with this.
All young people will know their family’s religious and cultural values around sex before they go into the classes. They will have this as a framework to their thinking and the sex education in school will be learned and understood within that framework.
The parents are the main source of education from birth, however many parents lack understanding and are not confident in their ability to talk to their kids about this subject. Many parents welcome the help of the schools and use the classes as a starting point for conversations with their kids.
Talking to young people about sex does not encourage them to go out and do it; by this age they already have formed their opinions and will do what they want to do anyways. The least we can do as responsible adults is help them prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections and give them the education they are asking for.
Although sex education from puberty onwards would be most desirable, this is still a welcome move from the government and should help to curb the high rates of teenage pregnancies in the UK.
You will see the opposite effect. The more you talk about sex to children, the more you stimulate them.
Also, sex education also promotes immoral sex, and this is spiritually unhealthy. This can already be seen in the general media, where kids get their ideas to begin with.
Media is flooded with sexual images, discussions of sex as “do what you want – just be safe.” Promiscuity has sky rocketed.
The teachers in these classrooms are not checked for imposing their value systems on the children. They do not want the parents to do this, but they definitely will.
For centuries or thousands of years, parents teaching values had more of an effect to curb unwanted behavior.
But now those parents have come up through the “do what you want” culture, and so they have no values to transmit to their children.
The answer to teenage pregnancies is to teach right vs wrong…not how to have sex and get away with it, including abortions as a right to do as a secret act, without parents consent.
Education systems are morally bankrupt. They should not be making moral decisions for parents. “Responsible adults” is a nice name for permissive adults.
Interesting article. Usually I would not necessarily leave a message here because I fully agree, but this is important:
I think Marianne belongs to a group of people who have lost the plot years ago. If you want to see “her” world, just check out the website. That’s pretty self-explanatory. Sometimes quite funny, sometimes scary. Who comes up with things like that?