Sexual education should be compulsory in schools
Sexuality is present throughout the whole life of men and women, but by far the most critical period in which it plays a fundamental role it is in adolescence, in which it flourishes in a higher degree. Youth is marked by the beginning of love relationships, as well as by the different sensations and urges that appear due to hormonal changes, which are absolutely normal at this age. According to the Chilean National Curriculum (Ministerio de Educación, 2001), schools should include the biological constituent of sexuality in their science classes, but what about the emotional and psychological part? Where are these aspects treated? Since these topics are generally avoided, a new instance is needed to provide children and adolescents with this information, and sexual education classes at school would be the perfect one. I strongly believe that they should be compulsory.
There are several reasons why sexual education should be obligatory.
English: A couple performing sexual intercourse fr...
English: National Stadium in Santiago, Chile EspaÃ...
Grèce, 1992 - Affiche Education sexuelle et santÃ...First, society-especially families-evade talking about sexuality, as they think that what is learned at school is enough. So, children and adolescents get most of the information on sex from sources like friends, the Internet, magazines, and television, which, by the way, is completely based on sexual images, as sex is what it sells (Baeza, 2009). It is true that youngsters turn to these sources because they do not feel confident enough to ask their parents or teachers about sexual issues, but the problem with these referents is that they may not offer children correct, real, and objective information. Sex education will certainly provide them with authentic data and will allow them to correct any piece of misinformation that they may have been exposed to.
Another reason why education on sex should be compulsory is that parents seem to be very subjective when...