[LISTEN] Comprehensive Sexuality Education lesson plans placed online
"We decided we need to give South Africans an opportunity to go through the books and review [them] and make up their minds what is fact and what is fiction."
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has released the scripted lesson plans which are being used in the pilot phase of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in selected schools on its website.
The pilot is being conducted in areas that have recorded high HIV infection rates and a prevalence of sexual abuse.
The Department's Elijah Mhlanga explains: "We decided to put the documents on our website because people were fed incorrect information about what is in our textbooks."
He says: "We decided we need to give South Africans an opportunity to go through the books and review [them] and make up their minds what is fact and what is fiction."
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Listen to Mhlanga below:
The DBE says the CSE has been part of the curriculum since the year 2000 and the only change is that in 2015 the department developed scripted lesson plans (SLPs) that are currently being tested in five provinces in order to strengthen the teaching of CSE in schools.
"The core aim of the CSE and its SLPs is to ensure that learners are helped to build an understanding of concepts, content, values, and attitudes related to sexuality, sexual behavior change as well as leading safe and healthy lives," says the DBE in a statement.
The department said it was extremely concerned that there seems to be lower sexual debut and increasing risky sexual behaviour among adolescents and HIV prevention knowledge has declined among learners.
Mhlanga says any lesson that a child learns starts at home.
"There is nothing that is going to substitute the role of a parent," he says, but he notes that the high HIV-infection rate among children and high teen-pregnancy rates are indicative that not all children are receiving this education at home.
Listen to Mhlanga below:
The DBE's scripted lesson plans can be found at https://www.education.gov.za/Home/ComprehensiveSexualityEducation.aspx.
The department said it remains open to further consultation and engagement on this matter.