Time to make sexuality education part of Vietnamese school curriculum

A 9-year project ensuring young people`s rights to sexual and reproductive health in rural areas of Vietnam has come to an end. The two driving forces behind the project are The Danish Family Planning Association (DFPA) and Center for Gender, Family and Environment in Development (CGFED). Steps to mainstreaming sexuality education in Vietnam are now being taken.
 
On September 20 CGFED and DFPA arranged a conference in Hanoi to highlight the results of the project and to advocate for an institutionalization of sexuality education in Vietnam. The project has shown its strength through the outreach and mobilization of community and local government support for sexuality education in the areas Nam Dinh, Bac Giang, Phu Yen and Ho Chi Minh City.

Aiming at enabling continued cooperation between DFPA and CGFED in a partnership to promote sexuality education in Vietnam, the conference was attended by more than 90 people, including the secretary general of DFPA, Bjarne B. Christensen, Executive Director of CGFED, Ms. Ngoc and representatives from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health.

 

Mr Christensen explained that from Danish experience, good quality sexuality education is based on a legal framework, qualified human resources and good education materials.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoang Yen from Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, the Ministry of Education and Training, the time is right to make sexuality education part of the school curriculum.

Facts and feelings: Sexuality education for middle schoolers

Middle school students "are at a unique point, going through puberty, learning about relationships and how to interact with someone they are attracted to," said Kirsten deFur, one of the facilitators of a sexuality education program at the Unitarian Church.

  STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Whatever age it happens, the way we learn about sex is usually memorable, The whole picture is often pieced together from various and sundry sources — the “the talk” with mom or dad, stories of friends, health class and a host of print and electronic media. The result can be a confusing mix of fact and misinformation. 

At the Unitarian Church of Staten Island, parents decided to provide middle school students with a more complete approach to their sexuality with a broad base of information. While sex education is part of the intermediate school curriculum, parents have found the emphasis to be on preventing STDs and AIDs and not on the range of physical and emotional changes that come with puberty.

“We don’t want a fear-based sexuality education program. We want one where sexuality is seen as a positive thing. If we give this age group the right information, they can make responsible decisions,” said Kate Howard, religious exploration coordinator.

The course is part of the the Unitarian Universalist’s program for sexuality education known as OWL — Our Whole Lives.

 

  KIRSTEN DeFUR 

The curriculum is secular and free of any religious doctrine. It will be facilitated by Rona Solomon, president of the Unitarian Church of Staten Island and sexuality educator Kirsten deFur.
“These students are at a unique point, going through puberty, learning about relationships and how to interact with someone they are attracted to,” said Ms. deFur who has a master of public health in sexuality and health from Columbia University.
“It’s important for them to think about relationships and sexuality and how people get along before they enter into a serious relationship,” she added.
“More than the birds and the bees,” says Ms. deFur, the course emphasizes relationship skills and healthy living, by including a range of areas, including body awareness, human development, friendship, dating, gender issues and social responsibility.

RONA SOLOMON 

Ms. Solomon has an extensive background in human and reproductive rights that includes founding executive director of the Staten Island Aids Task Force and Development Director of Community Family Planning Council.

Students will have the opportunity to read, discuss and ask questions.

“It’s important to have a safe base to explore and talk about sexuality,” said Ms. deFur. The curriculum is meant to support a parent’s role as the primary educators of their children.

A parent orientation will be held Sunday, Nov. 11 from 12:45 to 2:15 p.m. Parents can register their children on that day for the 11 week course that begins Jan. 6. The fee for the course is $150. Financial assistance may be available. For more information, contact Ms. Howard at 718-447-2204 or recoordinator@uucsi.org.

Teens taking online sex ed course have reduced sexually transmitted infections, improved condom use

Marco Gonzalez-Navarro
Marco Gonzalez-Navarro is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who was part of research team that found an online sexual education course improved the sexual behaviours and attitudes of Comlombian ninth graders.
 If learning about the birds and the bees from your antiquated teacher in a room full of giggling adolescents seemed like torture, researchers have found a more effective solution.

A team from the University of Toronto, University of Ottawa, Yale University and including researchers in South America studied the attitudes and behaviour of ninth graders in Colombia who took an online sexual education course. Those who were sexually active were found to have fewer sexually transmitted infections, increased condom use and a greater awareness of sexually abusive situations.

“We found very strong and significant effects,” said Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. “Using these tools to provide a more complex sexual health education seemed to work at least in this context.”

The study, published as a working paper, tracked 138 ninth graders from 69 public schools in 21 Colombian cities who took a semester-long course provided by Profamilia — an arm of Planned Parenthood International — at a cost of $14 per student.

Students spent an hour and a half each day in class on the computer, where they worked through interactive modules and quizzes on topics such as sexual rights, pregnancy, contraceptives and infections.

An important part of the course was access to a remote Profamilia tutor, with whom students could communicate privately to ask questions and get feedback.

“Using the Internet as a way of educating kids hasn’t always shown to be very effective,” Gonzalez-Navarro said, but in the case where discussing sexual activity openly can be awkward for teenagers, working online is an advantage.

“This is one of those topics in which privacy was a big thing,” he said.

Researchers conducted a survey of baseline attitudes before the course started, one week after the course had finished and six months later. Students were also given vouchers for condoms six months after the course,

The results of the study showed a 10-per-cent increase in condom use among students who had taken the course and a reduction in self-reported infections for those students who were sexually active when the course started.

Gonzalez-Navarro said there was a significant, positive impact on sexual behaviour among friend groups who had taken the course.

“That was pretty encouraging,” he said. “You get much more effects if you have groups of kids knowing the same things.”

While the number of unwanted pregnancies and the rate of sexually transmitted infections among teens are lower in North America than Colombia, with more access to sexual education resources, Gonzalez-Navarro said a course like this could still be implemented here.

“Indicators such as teenage pregnancy are much better in Canada than in Columbia,” he said. “But there’s still room for improvement.”

Texas public school districts alter sex education programs

Abstinence Education Jennifer Waters, education director for 180 degrees program, teaches an abstinence class at Arbor Creek Middle School, in Carrollton, Texas, March 27, 2007. Texas law requires sex education courses be abstinence-based.

This past year, several Texas school districts have implemented a new abstinence-plus program developed by the University of Texas Prevention Research Center (UTPRC) at Houston. The program is called “It’s Your Game … Keep It Real,” or IYG. IYG is both a classroom- and computer-based program specifically designed for middle school kids.

In 1995, then Gov. George W. Bush signed a bill that required all Texas schools to teach abstinence only curricula. At the time, this bill made Texas the third state to require abstinence only education.

The IYG program emphasizes and encourages abstinence; however, it also promotes the theory that the more teens know about sex, the longer they wait to have sex. IYG works toward “developing, implementing and disseminating fact-based human sexuality education in middle schools,” according to IYG’s mission and purpose statement.

The program is designed to “teach teens about their bodies, personal relationships, personal rules and sex while giving them the skills to grow into safe, responsible young adults,” according to the IYG’s website. IYG is separated into two programs: “It’s Your Game: Risk Reduction” and “It’s Your Game: Risk Avoidance.”

The former is a comprehensive program “grounded in theory” while the other “emphasizes the benefits of abstinence-until-marriage, individual and social benefits of marriage and incorporates elements of character development and future orientation,” according to IYG’s website.

Some people are enthusiastic about the possible effects of the program.

Senior Susan Hublein is a campus coordinator for GENAustin. As a campus coordinator, Hublein teaches middle school girls about puberty, positive body image and cultivating healthy relationships. GENAustin is geared specifically to elementary, middle and high school girls.

“One of the most shocking things [is that] in one of the schools I had to explain the difference between tampons and condoms,” Hublein said. “The fact that I had to explain the difference is frightening.”

As of now, districts in Austin, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Plano and Houston as well as nine school districts and the KIPP charter school system in Harris County have adopted the curriculum, including Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.

Cy-Fair ISD began the curriculum at the end of October. Some parents have raised complaints about the explicit nature of IYG. On Facebook, there is a group called “Cy-Fair Parents Against Safer Sex-Ed for 7th & 8th Graders.” The parents feel IYG teaches children how to have safer sex, according to the page.

The program has an opt-out clause that allows parents to choose whether they want their child in the program. Texas requires that notice of sex education be given to parents, according to Guttmacher Institute.
Some parents do not agree with the opposition to the program.

“Me as a parent, I don’t mind this class as long as consent [from parents] is provided. This conversation should start early,” said Yvonne Johnson, mother of a sophomore at Cypress-Fairbanks High School. “I wish my daughter could have been in this program.”

The Houston Chronicle reported that the school district may drop seventh graders from the program.