Sex education - Case for overhauling subject

TWELVE years after RSE — Relationships and Sexuality Education — was introduced in Irish schools, parents will be dismayed to discover that many youngsters today are not being taught about sex at all.

If ever there was a compelling case for radically overhauling sex education in the classroom, it is graphically etched in the pages of a report showing how it is being neglected at senior level in secondary schools.

Given the public’s justifiable anxiety over the dangers facing vulnerable young people from predatory paedophiles, it is disturbing that boys attending single-sex schools receive little or no sex education.

What is particularly alarming is that some teenagers are getting no sex education whatever. This is all the more worrying at a time when young people rely more on the internet for support and advice than on their teachers or parents.

But the problems begin much earlier, judging by the ISPCC revelation that one-in-five children contacting Childline were concerned about sexual issues.

Appropriately, the survey launched yesterday by Education Minister Mary Hanafin was commissioned by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency. Underlining its significance, Katharine Bulbulia, the agency’s chairwoman, warned that young people’s need for information on how to deal with sexual feelings and emotions, is becoming particularly urgent as the average age of first sexual intercourse is steadily decreasing.

Among its more critical findings, the survey shows that Irish teenagers are being taught in a patchy and inconsistent way about sex and relationships.

A former teacher herself, Ms Hanafin stresses the more positive aspects of the document, especially the finding that sex education is being taught in “some form” in 90% of secondary schools during first and second year.

However, whatever degree of emphasis is seen in the early school cycle, it peters out completely as pupils move on to Leaving Certificate classes, where exam pressures dominate. Understandably, subjects which are not on the Leaving Cert schedule tend to be squeezed out of a packed timetable.

Aware of the challenges that need to be tackled, Ms Hanafin’s focus in the immediate future is to “ensure all schools deliver the programme and promote consistency in how content is addressed”.

Alarmingly, a significant proportion of schools are not teaching sex education at all. At junior cycle, for example, between 15% and 30% of pupils get no RSE. And at senior cycle level, close to half of schools have no programme.

Of the schools examined in the course of the survey, those for boys only fared worst of all. This failure was particularly evident at Junior Cert level, where students emphasised the need to comprehensively address such sensitive issues as contraception and safe sex, condom use, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual orientation.

There has long been heated debate on the vexed question of the Catholic Church’s influence on the approach to sex education in Ireland’s education system.

Whatever the answer, the report points the finger at teacher discomfort and a general lack of support for the subject. It leaves no doubt that boys’ schools and male teachers in particular should be encouraged to confront the issue.

Be that as it may, the report also underlines that students are hungry to learn about subjects which will have a profound effect on their future lives. This issue can no longer be swept under the carpet.

Above all, the findings of this report underline the urgent need for decisive action on a topic which is lost sight of between the home and secondary school. The thorny question facing Mr Hanafin is whether sex education should be made compulsory in the classroom.