Sex education amendment raises controversy

 

But the current amendment, which is being debated in the House of Commons, reinforces what Balls promised after last autumn's announcement: that faith schools will be allowed to keep a religious ethos in the lessons and maintain the "tenets of their faith." Critics have accused Balls of "watering down" the overall purpose of the bill, which is to require all schools to teach sex education in respect of equality and diversity. In his defence Balls claimed that this amendment does not change the fact that faith schools have to teach the facts and also other views on sexual relationships. But he wanted to reassure faith schools that they can still teach sex education from their faith perspective.

 

Trevor Cooling, Director of the Transforming Lives Project and Forum for Change Education cluster host, said, "The important thing about this amendment is that the Government has recognised that you can't adopt a neutral approach to sex education because it always raises issues of beliefs and values. You cannot teach sex education without a framework of beliefs and values, and it's very important that church schools are allowed to set their teaching within this framework."

 

Dan Boucher, Director of Parliamentary Affairs for CARE, said, ""The amendment does placate faith schools, but the ability for them to teach things that are consistent with their faith was never in doubt. In contrast to the media focus on faith schools, the real issue is the fact that the SRE curriculum for everyone is going to be determined centrally rather than giving parents the option of informing school governors on the SRE curriculum in any school that their children attend, faith or otherwise."