The Fair Sex Movement is calling for a public consultation on the Government’s controversial proposals to make sex and relationship education a statutory requirement for children five years old and over in all England's schools.
"People are too young to understand what the consequences are,” says 17-year-old Coronation Street actress Sacha Parkinson, who stars as a pregnant young teenager in the forthcoming film “A Boy Called Dad”.
"If people are just being taught about sex, then they'll think ‘that's something we should do’; if they're taught in a moral way, then it gives more respect to it,” comments the teenager, whose character in the long-running soap opera has pledged to abstain from sex before marriage.
More than 2,600 people have already signed an online petition calling on the Prime Minister to “conduct a 12 week public consultation regarding whether or not to make sex and relationship education a statutory requirement for children five years old and over, expressing regret that this did not take place before the decision was announced by Jim Knight on October 23rd”.
The Jubilee Centre said parents were upset that they have been excluded from the Government’s decision to place sex and relationship education on the National Curriculum. They fear that the state’s intervention further undermines their input into their children’s education on these personal and sensitive areas, the social reform organisation said.
“The Government should not be prescribing the content of sex and relationships instruction in schools,” warns Dr John Hayward, director of the Jubilee Centre, which recently launched the Fair Sex Movement.
“School communities – including parents, teachers and governors, and the children themselves – should be given the freedom to decide locally what content would be most appropriate in their classes.”
‘Fair Sex’ is an informal movement that seeks to promote a greater awareness of the personal, social and economic consequences of sexual relationships. Its recent launch was marked by the release on the internet of three public service videos, following four years original research into sexual ethics and relationships by the Jubilee Centre.
The videos and further information about the Fair Sex Movement can be found on the Jubilee Centre’s website, at www.jubilee-centre.org
