Should Sex Education Be Introduced in Academic Curriculum?

Problems regarding sex that arise mostly during the adolescence are a consequence of their poor knowledge about the issue. I was a witness of one such case that happens at this age. One of my friends was in love with a boy and their relationship lasted for approximately a year. He was the first boy that she had sexual intercourse with. Common thing for all adolescents, they are starting a new era in their lives but without taking any responsibility for that. As a consequence she got pregnant. He left her alone to overcome the problem. It was a typical example of non-adult behaviour. Luckily, my friends and I were there to help her, as well as her parents. In my opinion this is a common story and is becoming more and more widespread. Sex education should be included in the academic curriculum to avoid these kinds of problems and to prepare children with enough background knowledge before embarking into sexual relationships.

There are people that would argue that introducing sexual education is a waste of money and time. Introducing sex education in academic curriculum is pointless because opinions and attitudes differ across cultures and ages. For instance, Muslims have a different approach to sexual behaviour than Christians have. Also, not all children have the same opinions about that topic, and not all children at the same age are also physically and psychologically mature to deal with the issue. For example, some boys become men at the age of 14, some at 16 and some mature much later on. Therefore, some of them are mature to start sexual intercourse earlier than others. Taking into account those arguments, they strongly stand for the fact that sexual education is pointless. You can provide them with information about sex, but you cannot expect that they will have same approach to it. However, introducing sexual education is likely to decrease many kinds of problems that occur during adolescence. In her online journal "Going Too Far", Susan Rose is giving a data about number of teen pregnancies in USA, stating that America has several times bigger number of teen pregnancies comparing to West-European countries. Those numbers are influenced by cultural variations and attitudes, as well as religion (Rose 8). Nevertheless, the problem is that US government is considering this problem too differently. They think that it is better for girls not to have sexual intercourse, rather than educate them in order to avoid pregnancy (8). In US schools 7 million dollars were spent in order to develop pregnancy prevention, which resulted with a large decrease in pregnancies, and was essential for children's knowledge (10). To conclude, it is true that sexual attitudes differ across cultures; however the fact is that all teenagers, no matter which culture they are from, should be taught about common points about sexual intercourse, about preventions as well as consequences of carelessly going into such behaviour. Having in mind non-desired consequences of risk behaviour, can help them to be sexually aware and responsible.

There is idea among people that introducing sex education in developed countries like North America and Europe is a waste of resources because teens learn about the topic indirectly through media, so they are not completely uneducated about the topic. On the other hand, in undeveloped countries such as Africa, the number of teen pregnancies is higher. Statistics show that Africa has the highest number of AIDS victims, so they are the ones that really need to be educated on topic. However, it is stated in journal "Teachers' views of teaching sex education: pedagogy and models of delivery", that introducing sex education in many schools influenced pupil's approach to issue. Even though they could be informed by media, direct education like this in schools by lecturing has much more bigger influence (2-6). Media in developed countries can be supplementary source of acknowledgement, but real education and lecturing in schools is necessary and it is the best way of advising, since teachers can have direct verbal communication with kids.

It is really helpful to provide children with the background information about the issues, either they are form developed or undeveloped countries, they all need education.

The most dangerous disease one can get during the sexual intercourse is AIDS. Many people argue that introducing sexual education about AIDS is not that helpful because knowledge about measures of prevention is common stuff, as well as catastrophic consequences. There are no symptoms and one cannot be sure about having the infection, unless it makes a decision to go and test itself, which is a very hard decision