INCIDENTS of teenage pregnancy in Region 6 are up by 5.6 percent. We are reminded of the real need for sex education, and the funny arguments years back against the sex education provision of then proposed Reproductive Health Bill (now thankfully a law). Critics lobbied that age-appropriate health and sex education in schools would lead young people to have sex much earlier and would increase rates of sexual activity.
But studies actually show not only the lack of evidence for these ridiculous claims but also the evidence for the opposite. Evidence from studies and surveys by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Medical University of South Carolina, the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, the University of California, and the Philippine Statistics Authority all support the efficacy of sex education in delaying sexual initiation among young people.
Reproductive health and sex education do not raise adolescent population’s sexual desires, but actually inhibits them. In addition, sex education also makes young adults more sexually responsible by using condoms, which lowers the risks of spreading sexually transmitted infections
In contrary, a lack of sex education is likely to result in reduced quality of human capital, as manifested by lower level of educational attainment. Filipinos especially teenagers and young adults are not well-informed about sex-related issues that could intimately and personally affect them. Addressing this information deficiency with appropriately designed sex education can be beneficial.
Sex education in school is a practical solution. It is more prudent for the government to ensure that the youth get age-appropriate sex education than keep them ignorant. It is not uncommon for the young to grow up without having quality time with parents and their surrogates to discuss about sex-related issues. Often, they get false information and bad advice from peers who also need proper sex education.
However, there are risks in providing the youth with comprehensive sexuality education in public schools. There must be ways to deal with concerns of premature and improper exposure to inappropriate materials. School officials can work together with parents, community leaders, teachers, local experts, social scientists, and health educators to develop a sex education program that is designed to provide students with accurate information about HIV/AIDS and other sex-related issues.
It is better to develop a sex education program based on a deep consultative process with key stakeholders than preventing government from providing students with opportunities to learn from professionally developed sex education programs solely because of pre-conceived ideas of their consequences.
Moral beliefs and good intentions alone are not enough to determine whether a policy position is beneficial or detrimental to the well-being of the country’s citizens. Empirical evidence is necessary to protect them against the unintended consequences of well-meaning but misinformed policy stance.
