Sex education vs abstinence

A BATTLE is brewing in Trinidad and Tobago’s education sector over how HIV/AIDS prevention should be taught to children. According to reports, pressure is being put on the Ministry of Education to drop its current abstinence only policy in favour of a comprehensive sex education programme.

While the teaching of sex in TT’s schools has been a contentious issue for some time, in the past two years the debate has accelerated, with one side lobbying for a wide-ranging sex education programme and the other pushing for a policy based on abstinence.

The latter approach seemed to be the one most favoured by the Government. In 2004, the Abstinence Support Committee (ASC) launched abstinence clubs in schools throughout the country. This initiative was aimed at providing support and encouragement for young people to voluntarily abstain from sexual activity.

The ASC programme, conducted in collaboration with the Ministries of Health and Education, includes workshops to address HIV/AIDS among young people. The target group is the approximately 300,000 young people between the ages of five to 18 years in TT’s education system. It was among programmes and initiatives in the core curricula of the Secondary Education Modernisation Programme (SEMP).

However, several group’s have been critical of the Government’s abstinence only approach to HIV/AIDS prevention and have stepped up their efforts to have a more in depth sex education programme introduced in schools.

Prominent among the groups calling for comprehensive sex education in TT’s schools is the local Humanist Association which is calling for young people to be exposed to information on abstinence, fidelity and condom use all at once. According to the group, the abstinence only approach “actively and explicitly undermines the safe sex message” and did not have a significant impact on the infection rate of sexually transmitted diseases.

In a statement on the issue the group said: “A complete and sustained sex education programme that combines information on abstinence, being faithful and contraceptive use, should be mandatory in all schools. These programmes should be non-judgmental and non-directive, fuelled by fact and by respect for the individual’s right to think.”

Education Minister Hazel Manning added fuel to the contentious debate when, in a June 16 address at a special meeting of the Council of Social and Economic Development in Port-of-Spain, she revealed that sex education and the issue of condoms was “on the agenda for further discussion”.

Manning said it was her personal view that a number of students are sexually active and “we have to decide how to deal with them”. However, she said she did not believe she should be “telling primary school children about condoms”.

The Minister said the views of all the stakeholders in education — parents, teachers and students — will be considered in the formulation of a policy. However, her statement has caused alarm among some stakeholders who are worried that the Ministry is on the verge of revising its policy to introduce information on condom use in secondary schools — an issue that has evoked strong reactions and criticism in the past year.

The issue of distributing condoms and training young people in contraceptive use caused an uproar three years ago when safe-sex advocate Svenn Miki Grant, distributed condoms outside a Port-of-Spain secondary school and at the National Library. Angry letters to newspapers and calls to talk radio programmes followed, with members of the public passionately expressing views on either side of the issue.

The idea of distributing condoms to young people was rejected by many education stake holders, including the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA), the National Parent Teachers Association (NPTA) and several religious groups

However, while that furore eventually died down, the issues of sexual activity and HIV infection among young people remain major national concerns. Data shows that the average age for first sexual intercourse in this country is 14 years and recently there have been startling revelations about sexual activity in schools.