Ruth Institute Blog

The British schools secretary is under fire for making allowances to religion-based schools to teach sex ed according to their beliefs. Those complaining against him sound like intolerant whiners to me.

Nathalie Rothschild

‘Every single one of you is the result of a good shag.’ Those were the opening words of my biology teacher as he introduced my class to its very first sex-education lesson. They were memorable words – indeed, they are all I can recall of the few, awkward and pretty useless lessons that our poor teacher was forced to deliver as part of the science curriculum.

As sex education will soon become compulsory for all schools in England, English kids will also have the chance to taunt and embarrass their teachers, just as me and my classmates did in our school in Sweden. Yet judging from the outrage caused by the UK government’s decision to allow faith schools a measure of freedom to tailor sex education according to their beliefs, for many people teaching kids about sex is a very serious business indeed.

When it emerged yesterday that the government is allowing an amendment to be made to the Children, Schools and Families Bill – which will basically allow faith schools to tell their students what their particular religion says about sex and relationships – the schools secretary Ed Balls was widely accused of making a u-turn on sex education, watering it down, and giving faith schools an opt-out. He is, many commentators argued, indulging religious people’s bigotry at taxpayers’ expense.

There’s an obvious pun to be made here about Balls and the muddle he has apparently made of sex education. But firstly, let us get to what is really messed up about Balls’ critics. They seem to believe that the government’s sex-education curriculum is some kind of pure and neutral piece of knowledge – simple factual education and nothing more – which faith schools will corrupt if they have the chance to tweak it in any way.

In fact, the government’s sex-education plans have been highly moralistic and politicised from the outset, aiming not just to enhance young people’s awareness of biology and certain physical acts (which most young people are aware of anyway), but also to impart moral lessons about relationships and human sexuality. We should bear in mind that the new compulsory subject is called Sex and Relationship Education (SRE).

As a new government guide on how to teach about sex outlines, teachers must, amongst other things, stress to children aged 11 or over the importance of marriage and the challenges of parenthood. The guide encourages teachers to dispel ‘myths’ around sex that are propounded by images seen on the internet and on television or which are sent between mobile phones – what has been termed ‘sexting’.

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