Sex education in schools must be much better, according to a manifesto published today. The message: don’t just teach young people where the clitoris is in biology, but also tell them about respect, gender identity and pleasure during civics or citizenship classes.
Edwin van der Aa
Since 2012, schools have had to pay attention to sexuality, including sexual diversity. However, every school is free to interpret this itself and in practice this does not always turn out to be satisfactory. The obligation also does not apply to upper secondary education and senior secondary vocational education, while it is precisely young people of this age who indicate that they need more extensive and diverse information.
So today young people, teachers, educational organizations and centers of expertise are calling on the cabinet in a manifesto to enable better sex education in education. ‘Recent events around sexual boundaries show how important it is that young people learn to respect each other’s wishes and boundaries. With an understanding of diversity and with sexual pleasure as the starting point,” it reads.
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Only about safe sex
It is an initiative of knowledge center Rutgers together with 37 youth and social organisations. “Young people indicate that they miss important information. They rate their sex education classes with a 5.8 and believe that the information is limited to practical matters such as safe sex,” says sex education expert Luc Lauwers. “That’s not surprising, because in secondary education the biology teacher often teaches sex education. Then the focus is automatically on the physical aspects.”
In secondary education, the biology teacher often teaches sex education. Then the focus is automatically on the physical aspects
According to the manifesto, it is necessary to relationships, (online) sexuality, gender and sex diversity and sexual resilience to work out concretely in the core objectives and attainment targets – what a pupil should know and be able to do in order to complete a course – of education. In addition, extra attention should be paid to MBO students, who, according to the pamphlet, are extra vulnerable in the sexual area.
Illogical and dishonest
Lauwers (Rutgers): ,,Now the responsibility lies very much with the individual school and teacher and we think that is illogical and unfair. The government must ensure that sufficient time and budget is made available for good sex education, that there is room for further training and that the theme also becomes compulsory subject in teacher training courses. In this way, the teachers of the future are already prepared for the new practice.”
Minister Wiersma (primary and secondary education): ,,This research indicates that young people have a need to talk about multiple aspects of sexuality. Your school will help you with that, in addition to the important role that parents play in sex education.” According to the minister, teachers also receive support for this from, for example, the School and Safety Foundation. “In addition, together with education, we are tightening up what young people should learn, also in this area. So that teaching about this is guaranteed at every school.”
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‘I did not recognize myself in the teaching materials’
Damian (24) thinks that the sex education he received at school gave a far too one-sided picture of relationships. “There must be more room for diversity in secondary schools and even in primary education. I did not recognize myself in the teaching material at all. I found that difficult, because at my school it was not about the possible relationship between two men, but the straight couple was seen as the norm. There you are as a gay young man and at that age you are seen as abnormal anyway when you come out. Because young people only recognize a limited picture that they are presented with.”
Damian also notes that school was only about ‘the flowers and the bees’ and not about respect, mutual pleasure or the influence of porn on sexuality. “As a result, young people go on the internet to see what is possible in the world and then they quickly end up on porn websites. Where they then see that the pizza delivery boy is suddenly pulled in. This does not happen in daily life, but it makes the image of young people about sex unrealistic.”
Fortunately, according to Damian, schools are already working on topics such as gender identity much more than before. “But it’s still not enough. Learning about sexual diversity involves much more than just teaching pronouns like ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘them’. That starts with good teaching materials and knowledgeable teachers.”
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