Sex Education to be Compulsory?

[0iD]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7684810.stm
http://uk.reuters.com/article/domest...49M20K20081023
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ed...ol-969989.html

Is this really the answer to the teenage pregnancy boom & the rise of STI's in young people?

[[GSV]Trig]

Lots of things need to change in schools, this is only part of it.

[Funkstar]

I haven't read the articles, but my feeling is this is a good thing.

[eshrules]

I firmly believe one of the key ways to prevent a consequence, is to educate people of it.

By teaching kids, at a younger age, that sex is not necessarily wrong (as many would like them to think it seems), it does come with risks and precautions have to be made.

IMHO, the old-school train of thought, whereby 'sex is bad, you must not do this this and this until you are this age) is no longer suitable for application within our modern-day society. We need to teach children at an age whereby they're still tolerant of sound advice, provide support for when anything goes wrong and most of all, get shut of this taboo that still seems to surround sex.

Just my 2 penny's

[PeterStoba]

It won't work

[eshrules]

It won't work

really? any reasons at all, or are you just a natural skeptic

[PeterStoba]

The government came up with the idea, ofcourse it won't work.

If they didn't support teenage mothers as much as they do, alot less would do it. Many girls do it to gain houses/more benefits etc...

[matty-hodgson]

half the problem of sex education in schools is the fact that as soon as you mention a 'penis' or a 'vagina' to a young kid, they're gonna burst into tears with laughter and begin to not listen..
this even happens when they're about 13 or 14 years of age.
i remember my sex education in year 10 (2 years ago) and by then, a few of them had already had sex, so it was already too late.

what we really need is to make kids less shy about the whole thing.. provide them with better information and better birth control (not including the parents in some cases) and just a whole new way of teaching them about it.

the thing they do where they get people in to talk to you in a group is also absolutely useless, all you end up doing is sitting at the back saying to your mates "she's never had sex, she's minging" or something like that.. and never really bother to pay attention 'cause all they ever do is come in and show you absolutely horrible photos of what can happen and tell you to use condoms, but you're just sat there thinking "that'll never happen to me (you) ..." but the worst thing is, it easily could happen to me (you) if i don't watch what i'm (you're) doing..

recently our sixth form had these test kits in the girls and boys toilets to test for chlamydia, you just provided a small sample of pee and wrote out all your details onto the sheet and sealed the package and posted it off..
this was all well and good, until some of the year 13s started peeing in them and leaving them around the school, and in 1 case, chucking it on someone.. this ended up with the whole idea being scrapped and the test kits were only available if you asked for one, then you had to go and do the test and then give the whole sealed thing back to the teacher again, but that's not the point in the whole kit, the idea of it was that some kids didn't really want to go and see their GP or their local sexual health clinic about anything, so you got to do this test anonymously and they texted you your 'result' back to you in a couple of weeks time, and if the worst were to happen they'd help you organise a suitable treatment and you could meet up with people to treat the problem.

basically, we need to teach kids from a young age that sex isn't bad, sex is good, but only if you take precautions.
and we need to include children's thoughts into how we could teach sex ed. better, to prevent this whole 'worst birth rate in europe' thing..


something i'd like to add: some shops in town sell boxes of condoms.. but only to people that look over 18.. what use is that? most kids these days are having sex from 14+ (sometimes even younger) so surely.. they should just sell them to anyone of any age?
if they're gonna have sex, then they really should be provided the protection they need..

so really.. what can retailers do about this?

just something else to think about

[eshrules]

The government came up with the idea, ofcourse it won't work.

Could I be rude and ask how old you are?

If they didn't support teenage mothers as much as they do, alot less would do it. Many girls do it to gain houses/more benefits etc...

The government support all mothers, fathers etc. Should they just withdraw support for those under 20 and leave them to fend for themselves?

[Mike Fishcake]

I fully support compulsory sex education. It's absolutely necessary.

The government came up with the idea, ofcourse it won't work.

If they didn't support teenage mothers as much as they do, alot less would do it. Many girls do it to gain houses/more benefits etc...

Many girls do it because they're naive and think that bringing up a baby is a walk in the park, and getting handouts would make it a magic fix.

Educating them that bringing up kids is actually hard work, showing them examples of how childcare is extremely difficult and tiring should hopefully make some realise that it's not what they want at all.

Show them that a baby isn't just about shoving a bottle in it's mouth and changing a few dirty nappies and they'll soon change their mind.

You're never going to completely eradicate it, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to reduce it.

[Lee H]

Look at the Dutch folks

They teach their children sexual education from an early age and don't give it a "OMG don't do it" stigma that seems to be attached to sex in schools over here and apparently IIRC they have one of the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe.

[matty-hodgson]

Look at the Dutch folks

They teach their children sexual education from an early age and don't give it a "OMG don't do it" stigma that seems to be attached to sex in schools over here and apparently IIRC they have one of the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe.

whenever we British try and implement any kind of mainland european way of doing things, we never get it right and almost always make it worse.. but if we could manage to teach kids in the same way, happy days

[Splash]

About frickin' time. Shy away from the S word all you like, the best way to induce responsibility is to make sure someone has all the facts. Sadly myths like "If you do it standing up you won't get pregnant" are still rife, and I personally find it shocking that anyone is willing to risk unprotected sex with the statistics on STDs and the like.

Remember - sex education isn't just "don't get pregnant, stupid".

[eshrules]

Sadly myths like "If you do it standing up you won't get pregnant"

omg? is that a myth?

[Stewart]

By teaching kids, at a younger age, that sex is not necessarily wrong (as many would like them to think it seems), it does come with risks and precautions have to be made.

Apart from religious loons, who is saying its wrong, these days?

[Lee H]

If you do it standing up you won't get pregnant

Ahh, so that's where I went wrong and now the girlfriends pregnant