THE State's 20,000 primary teachers are to receive two days of training in sex education in advance of the introduction of a nationwide programme in all schools, probably next year.
Details of the Relationships and Sexuality Education programme (RSE) to be taught in each school will be made available to parents before its introduction, according to the senior inspector with responsibility for the programme in the Department of Education, Ms Emer Egan.
The Department wants parents, teachers and managers in each school to draw up their own policy on RSE, based on guidelines from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. The resulting programme would command broad support, it is hoped, although parents would still have the right to withdraw their children from RSE classes on grounds of conscience.
"If the consultation process is followed correctly in each school, nothing should be happening in schools which might cause alarm to parents", Ms Egan said yesterday.
An interim curriculum and guidelines for the programme have already been produced for junior primary classes and for post primary school. Guidelines for the senior primary classes will follow in the autumn.
The information leaflet being prepared for parents will explain what the RSE programme is and how it will be handled in the school. It will also suggest ways in which RSE and parental instruction can complement each other. However, it will not deal with the content of the programme.
According to Ms Egan, teachers have responded positively to the programme so far. She acknowledged that there had been calls for more training and additional resource materials and said that concerns had been expressed about teaching sensitive parts of the RSE curriculum in mixed grade classes and in special schools.
"We don't want to develop a prescriptive programme. What we're aiming for is a menu from which teachers can choose according to their school policy," she said.
Criticisms by conservative Catholic groups that the programme had no moral framework were unfounded, according to the co-ordinator of the programme,
Ms Nora Brennan. "RSE aims to foster values such as love, respect and care for others. Sometimes there is a belief that morals and values equal religion, but that isn't so.
