Are you happy about this change to the Junior Cert curriculum?
A revamp for the teaching of young teenagers, to be published today, could potentially prove controversial among some parents, despite the demand for addressing such issues has been student-led.
The new Junior Cert curriculum that will come into place next school year, will see lessons about pornography given in Irish classrooms for the first time, following a major review of Relationships and Sexuality Education.
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) will today publish a draft course for all pupils on sex education, and the draft curriculum will tackle pornography, with reference to the online world, and the sharing of sexual images. It will then further deal with consent and matters such as gender stereotyping.
“Every school, irrespective of ethos, will have to deliver it,” a source told the Irish Independent.
The Department of Education has also concluded that the existing approach to such education in schools was “heavily concerned with the risks and dangers associated with relationships and sexuality, and did not allow for sufficient discussion of the positive, healthy and enjoyable aspects”.
Two new subjects
The two subjects involved are called SPHE (Social, Personal and Health Education) and RSE (Relationships and Sexuality Education), and involve “new material on a range of issues, including consent, safe use of the internet, pornography, gender identity and sexual orientation, healthy and positive relationships, and addiction issues”.
Also taught will be sexual orientation, unhealthy abusive relationships, contraception, safer sexual health, LGBTQ+ and addictions.
There will now be a three-month period of public consultation. It is intended that the curriculum can be finalised and rolled out in schools from September next year.
“All interested parties can make their views known through this consultation process,” a spokesman said.
National parent bodies have already had an input, but there has also been “extensive consultation with students”, as well as with teaching bodies and interested organisations.
Research revealed that for most students the instruction received was “simply not meeting the demands of modern life”.
