This opinion piece was written by Wannes Magits (Sensoa), Dominique Van den Elsacker (Pimento), Heidi De Pauw (Child Focus), Mauro Michielsen (chairman of the Flemish School Organization), Yves Aerts (çavaria), Amir Bachrouri and Franka Foré (the Flemish Youth Council ).
The new educational goals refer relational and sexuality education to the footnotes. It is summed up in two sentences. “The students interact respectfully and constructively with others, taking into account each other’s boundaries. Interact with others respectfully and constructively such as […] show respect for relational and sexual integrity.” So, you have just read everything that is expected from the government regarding relational and sexuality education. The latter, showing respect, is also just an example, it is not mandatory. If the previous final objectives were already minimal in their attention, then we dance the limbo with these educational goals.
Quite a few young people have concerns about their sexual health. Reports of sexually transgressive behavior are increasing. Child Focus creates files on a daily basis about forwarded nude photos of minors. 4 out of 10 LGBTQ+ young people feel unsafe at school. Young people mirror themselves on social media or look for porn or unreliable TikTok influencers if they want to learn about sex. Apart from attention to the risks, students themselves are asking to look further. They also want sexuality to be addressed in a broad, positive way at school. They want to know more than just what not to do.
keeper
Some education umbrella organizations won their battle last year when the Constitutional Court dismissed the then current minimum goals. The reason for this was that schools had too little freedom to provide their own pedagogical project.
We therefore call on schools to make full use of this regained freedom. Focus on relational and sexual education. There is plenty of support material for teachers. Schools can use all the help of the education umbrella organisations, so that they don’t have to find out everything themselves. School boards can develop their own school vision on sexual health and teachers can examine how they can meet the questions of students.
There are also organizations with well-trained training workers who can provide training to teams of teachers or directly to students. In short, schools, make it a permanent fixture so that students feel good about themselves, grow in their relational skills, respect each other’s boundaries and can protect themselves against STIs or an unplanned pregnancy. Better than just porn and TikTok, right?
