Poor sex education puts teens at risk of STIs

INADEQUATE sex education at school is leaving young people more vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections, a senior medical officer in the Department of Health warned yesterday.

The department’s deputy chief medical officer, Dr Colette Bonner, said a new report highlighting inadequacies in relationships and sexuality education in second-level schools was worrying from a public health perspective.

The study found that three-quarters of teenagers had no sex-education classes last year. And of the small number who had, the subject was most likely to be delivered as part of religion class.