The coordinator of the Left Bloc and the single deputy wrote, in the first person, a letter to the Minister of Education, in the “hope” that the decision made, to remove the theme of sex education from the citizenship discipline regulation, is changed.
“Lord Minister, Fernando Alexandre, sex education is a fundamental part of education for citizenship.” This is how the letter Mariana Mortágua, coordinator of the Left Bloc (BE) begins, wrote and addressed the Minister of Education.
The bloquist then starts to list the reasons that make sex education “fundamental” in the curriculum of citizenship discipline, from the outset by “important aspect of public health and the development of young people”, But also“ in Prevention of Sexual Crimes and in the awareness of consent ”.
“Studies show that sex education has positive effects on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and acts to reduce the adolescence rate of pregnancy by providing accurate information on contraception, sexual and reproductive health,” writes the single deputy, stressing that he is, in fact, associated with the “reduction of the number of voluntary interruptions of younger ages.”
But, using other studies, Mariana Mortágua warns the Minister of Education to also have a “Important social education component“And that is, writes,” related to knowledge about love relationships and feelings. “
In this sense, and despite recognizing “the gaps that sex education in the school context presents”, the blockman understands that The solution is not “its reduction” but “the reinforcement of the theme and the diversification of content”.
This is precisely why Mariana Mortágua joins, to the vast, to withdraw from the curriculum from the discipline of citizenship “the overwhelming majority of sexual education contents”, which stared at him with “great perplexity and misunderstanding.”
“The Prime Minister had pointed to the desire to ‘free’ the discipline of citizenship of ‘ideological ties’, but the almost total eradication of curriculum sexual education is based on ideological prejudice that ignores the entire scientific literature on the subject,” he disputes.
Finally, and he writes, “hoping that they can serve an informed decision on the subject,” the deputado do BE shares with the Minister of Education three pages with links to “several studies on the positive effects of sex education in Portugal and in Europe.”
Citizenship without sex education
It is the intention of the government .
Matters related to gender identity and sex education will be left out in new learning essentials for discipline.
Asked why these decisions, the Minister of Education refused, on Monday, at the end of one, to comment on the subject of sexuality, but confirmed that the gender identity will have no place in the new essential learning.
“It is a subject of great complexity and often people are not even prepared to teach this, especially when we are talking about very young students,” he insisted, although the document refers, within the scope of human rights for the 3rd cycle, the analysis of “historical and current cases of human rights violations (including, among others, as violence against sexual orientation and expression of non -normative genres and expression).
