Last
week the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that it would
be identifying and training educators to teach its updated sexuality education
program in local schools.
The two programs: Growing Years
and Empowered Teens (eTeens) are aimed at students from Primary 5
(approximately age 11) all the way up to junior college or centralised
institutes (approximately ages 17 to 19). The curriculum will include teaching
children how to navigate and handle relationships on new media networks, how to
protect themselves from unsafe sex and how to say “no” to pre-marital sex.
While it is commendable that MOE
is constantly updating and evolving its sexuality education curriculum, the
announcement has also raised concerns among many Singaporeans.
In selecting and training
sexuality educators, MOE has stated that it will only choose teachers whose
values align with the ministry’s. But what values are these, exactly?
In a reply to forum letters, Director of the Student
Development Curriculum Liew Wei Li identified the values as “the importance of
the heterosexual married family as the basic unit of society, and respect for
the values and beliefs of the different ethnic and religious communities on
sexuality issues.” She also emphasised that the ministry would promote
abstinence as “the best option”.
This is where we stray into dodgy
territory – pushing one particular method as “the best”, rather than allowing
students to make their own informed decisions. It is also unclear where the ministry
got their “mainstream” values; do these values really reflect modern
Singaporean society, or are they just a set of values determined by a
paternalistic government?
The same goes for the concept of
the “heterosexual married family as the basic unit of society”. Of course, it’s
highly possible that a large portion of Singaporean society may still believe
in this. But is it really fair to teach it to impressionable children as a
“mainstream value”?
On 30 June, over 15,000
people gathered in
Hong Lim Park for Pink Dot, a celebration of the freedom of love. These people
were there to support the right of everyone to love and be part of society,
regardless of sexual orientation.
The turn-out was more than seven
times that of the first Pink Dot, and seen as a sign of increasing acceptance
of LGBT communities. In this context, would it still be fair to say that
heterosexual nuclear families are preferred by the mainstream?
While we take into consideration
our multi-racial and multi-religious society, should we not also acknowledge
other aspects of our country’s diversity, and respect others such as
homosexuals and single parents who may not fit into the “norm” identified by
the ministry?
The danger of sexuality education
focused on encouraging abstinence is that we will likely end up fostering
generations of Singaporeans who feel as if sex and sexuality is something that
shameful and dangerous, rather than something natural and important to our
lives.
We teach children to assign
values to what are ultimately very personal choices, and to judge people
accordingly: the best person would be the one who rejects sex before marriage,
while those who have pre-marital sex must be somehow lacking in moral values.
In the long run, is this really
healthy for our society?
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