A ranking member of Parliamentary Select Committee on Education says the newly introduced Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) curriculum is a duplication of the existing curriculum.
Peter Nortsu Kotoe who is Akatsi North MP explained that contents of the curriculum are taught as courses in subjects such as RME and Social Studies and called for its withdrawal.
“My worry is the level at which this education is to start from, which is KG level. I don’t know what they expect a four-year-old child to know about sexuality. I don’t think this is necessary now and it is not needed, especially as a separate subject to be taught in our schools because many of the things we find here are already in the syllabus under Social Studies and RME,” he said.
Background
In November 2018, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) pushed for sexual and reproductive health education in Ghana to be fused into the education system.
In collaboration with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), it put together a national guideline document for Comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health Education (CSE).
According to them, this move was part of a joint program being implemented in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), with the goal of empowering adolescent girls.
An orientation workshop on the national guidelines for the CSE was therefore held in Accra for the relevant CSOs to contribute to forming a practical syllabus to assist teaching and learning in that area.
Although this move was started last year, speculations and issues surrounding it began weeks ago.
This was after the government and UNESCO launched the CSE program this year.
This move by the government sparked up negative reactions from Ghanaians, fighting against the idea of introducing issues relating to sexuality to children at a very young age.
However, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has revealed that the introduction of the Comprehensive Sexuality Education into the basic school curriculum will not undermine Ghanaian cultural norms.
Some of the speculations centred around fears on sensitization on sexuality and LGBTQ ideas.
The service assured that no special periods “have been organized or will ever be organized by the GES to train students as advocates for sexual rights, let alone LGBT rights which are culturally, socially, legally, moral and religiously alien to Ghana.”
