Are we making the time for sex education?

Most people agree that we need to speed up the introduction of sex education in our schools. Catherine Foley finds out how schools are squeezing a vital subject into an already-packed curriculum.

Most people, from educators to the young mothers pictured on this page, acknowledge that there is a need to speed-up the introduction of sex education, or - if you like - the new Social, Health and Personal Education (SHPE) programme, to both primary and post-primary schools.

So what's the problem? Could it be simply that schools have too much to do already?

Dr Mark Morgan, in his 2000 evaluation and review of the implementation of Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE), which is part of SPHE, wrote: "It is noteworthy that the teachers overwhelmingly identified the 'overcrowded curriculum' as the main difficulty in the actual implementation of RSE."

Anne Looney, chief executive of the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NCCA), admits that the curriculum is overloaded. "We do get the message," she says.

As second-level courses are being adjusted to make some space, Looney points out that RSE is now an integral part of the revised primary school curriculum. It will be in all second-level schools in junior cycle from September 2003 - though single-sex boys schools are particularly behind in introducing the programme, she says. The introduction of the senior-cycle programme is just beginning. Ultimately the programme will be compulsory in all schools.

Progress is being made. As John Lahiff, national co-ordinator of the SPHE Support Service (Post-Primary), explains: "We are in a lead-in time at the moment."

He says that "the (implementation) target that has been set is that by September 2003 all post-primary schools would have begun to incude the SPHE programme." About two-thirds, or just over 500 schools, have engaged with the support service so far, he says.

What will the RSE programme entail?

According to Morgan, more than 95 per cent of teachers at primary level and a similar percentage of parents said that "self-esteem", "understanding different family patterns", "influences on lifestyle", "understanding birth and new life" and "skills of communication" were important topics for the RSE curriculum in primary schools. "Both teachers and parents are in agreement on the importance of children learning the correct names for sexual organs in primary schools," Morgan says.

At junior cycle, Morgan's survey found that more than 90 per cent of post-primary teachers and parents were in agreement that "knowledge of sexual organs and their functions", "understanding fertility and conception" and "understanding the consequences of sexual activity" are important topics for the curriculum.

Of course, these are potentially controversial areas. It is especially important, Morgan says, to stress that the approach taken in the RSE programme is to deal with sexuality in the context of relationships, attitudes and values. This approach was strongly endorsed by parents and teachers, he found.

There are 10 modules in the Social Personal and Health Education Programme, including self-management, communication skills, physical health, frienships, relationships and sexuality, emotional health, substance use and personal safety.

The programme is "a spiral developmental programme", says Lahiff. That means it visits and revisits different topics at a level of sophistication appropriate to the developmental stage of the students.

Frances Shearer, national co-ordinator of the RSE programme, explains that "it isn't really a stand-alone programme" and schools have been implementing the programme at different rates. She, too, is quick to observe that RSE is only an element of SPHE.

The NCCA is currently putting a senior cycle of SPHE together, which RSE will go into, she explains. At present, primary teachers and post-primary teachers up to junior cycle are being offered training in SPHE to help schools introduce the programme.

RSE is being introduced into something very close to a vacuum, according to Morgan. "In over one quarter of schools (both primary and post-primary) there was no programme of any kind in the domain of relationships and sexuality education," he says.

However, the NCCA is keen to avoid hyped expectations of the programme. Looney says RSE is "part of a much bigger jigsaw", adding that "very often we put an over-emphasis" on what schools can do.

"The role of parents in this area can not be over-stressed... We often expect our young people and our schools to have standards that we would not expect from ourselves."

Teachers, nevertheless, play an important role as adults who are available to students, not simply as instructors.

Looney says the interplay between pupils and teachers is vital "in shaping how students value themselves, and teachers are acutely aware of that".

Teachers are conscious of themselves as "significant role models", she adds.

Asked if the educational system is responding quickly enough to meet the needs of students, Looney concludes: "Curriculum change is slow, but it's worth the wait. There's no end point, it will always be evolving. I'd rather we kept it slow than to be running around in an educational pinball machine."