SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

With in­creas­ing calls for sex ed­u­ca­tion to be taught in schools, chief ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer (CEO) Har­ri­lal Seecha­ran says there are el­e­ments al­ready be­ing taught at both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will stick to that ap­proach.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian at the min­istry’s 2018 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) Recog­ni­tion Cer­e­mo­ny at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Seecha­ran said those that were call­ing for sex ed­u­ca­tion to be taught must be un­aware that it has been a part of the cur­ricu­lum since 2015.

"We have as part of our health and fam­i­ly life ed­u­ca­tion a mod­ule on sex­u­al­i­ty and sex­u­al health ed­u­ca­tion which treats with how stu­dents re­spond to sit­u­a­tions," Seecha­ran said.

"This is what we are do­ing, it is a CARI­COM-ap­proved cur­ricu­lum and, there­fore, we are not about to change it."

Seecha­ran’s state­ments come a week af­ter Sports Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe made a pub­lic call for sex ed­u­ca­tion to be taught in schools at a younger age. She was speak­ing at the launch of Part­ner­ships for Youth Alive and Well at the US Em­bassy on No­vem­ber 29.

At that time, Cud­joe said the myth that sex ed­u­ca­tion will pro­mote ir­re­spon­si­ble sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty among young­sters must be con­demned. The Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (FPATT) has en­dorsed Cud­joe’s call while the T&T Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es has strong­ly op­posed it.

But Seecha­ran said sex ed­u­ca­tion was taught at both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary lev­els, with age-ap­pro­pri­ate con­tent.

"It’s age ap­pro­pri­ate, so at the pri­ma­ry school it is done as an in­te­gral part of the cur­ricu­lum and at the sec­ondary school it’s sep­a­rate, so at the pri­ma­ry school it may be "good touch, bad touch" and sec­ondary school is "how you re­spond in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions that you might be ex­posed to and ad­dress­ing ques­tions," he said.

“I am not sure what she is ask­ing for, we have al­ready rolled out a pro­gramme in school and that’s the ap­proach we are us­ing, we in the min­istry have to bal­ance the in­ter­ests of all sec­tors, par­ents, ed­u­ca­tors, and that’s the ap­proach.”

Seecha­ran said all stake­hold­ers were con­sult­ed be­fore the pro­gramme was in­tro­duced in schools and every­one was “on board” with it.

How­ev­er, he said de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools will be able to "ad­just" the cur­ricu­lum to a cer­tain ex­tent based on their be­liefs and prac­tices.

Seecha­ran said with­in the frame­work that the min­istry was us­ing, the dif­fer­ent de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards can make cer­tain ad­just­ments and adap­ta­tions based on their be­liefs and prac­tices.

Min­istry shows ap­pre­ci­a­tion for top SEA stu­dents

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia said the recog­ni­tion was im­por­tant to show ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the hard work of stu­dents, par­ents, and teach­ers for the SEA ex­ams.

Gar­cia said while the min­istry was hap­py to recog­nise those hard-work­ing stu­dents, it was al­so plac­ing spe­cial em­pha­sis on those who were falling be­hind. He said par­ents need­ed to be more in­volved in their chil­dren’s school life.

"To­day is re­al­ly a time of recog­ni­tion but while we recog­nise those stu­dents who have done well, we have not for­got­ten those stu­dents who have fall­en be­hind,” Gar­cia said.

"So, there­fore, we are putting things in place so their stu­dents will be able to step up to the plate both in terms of their own ef­forts and the ef­forts that are be­ing made by the teach­ers and the par­ents.

"We have been ask­ing our par­ents to play a greater role in as­sist­ing the school."