DOH pushes for sex education in schools

CEBU, Philippines – The Department of Health is urging the Department of Education to integrate sex education into the curricula in schools across the country focusing on the modes of transmission and prevention and control of Human Immunodeficiency-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV-Aids).

Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral said intervention is necessary at the school level, considering the “expanding and growing” HIV-Aids situation in the country. She said the number of HIV-Aids cases in the Philippines has already reached 5,000, a far cry from the “low and slow” and “hidden and growing phases” in the previous years.

The Department of Education welcomed the proposal, but Regional Director Recaredo Borgonia said the proposal needs to be tackled by the Management Committee.

“We have to equip and orient teachers on how to teach (HIV-Aids education), especially the content of the lesson and what to do in class,” Borgonia said.

He said lessons on sex education can integrated into the Science and Araling Panlipunan subjects.

“This will prevent the occurrence of HIV-Aids. We need to know the right information about this,” Borgonia said

Twenty-nine schools in the National Capital Region, Cebu, Zamboanga, Davao, Olongapo and Masbate are the target pilot schools.

Cabral said DepEd, the Commission on Higher education, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority have all integrated HIV/AIDS issues and concerns in their respective plans and activities.

DepEd Secretary Mona Valisno said earlier teaching sex education in school is still better than letting students learn the topic from just any sources like the Internet.

Valisno said that students’ awareness on the importance of abstinence and taking the right decision over consequences of sexual experience either by choice or due to peer pressure from peer group can be best achieved through education modules.

She added that due to the lack of knowledge on sex education, cases of sex-related diseases among the youth have hit an alarming rate.

Based on the 2003 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Survey (YAFSS), some 28 percent of young adults thought that Acquired Immune Deficiency Virus (AIDS) was curable, while 73 percent thought they were immune to HIV.

The survey also showed that the overall prevalence of sexual activity increased to 23 percent from 18 percent between 1994 and 2002.

“It is only proper that children be taught the issue especially with the rising incidents of premarital sex among the youth and teenage pregnancy. The country’s investment in education will only be put to waste if the population continued to grow at an outstanding rate,” Valisno said.

The advocacy to prevent the spread of HIV-Aids, according to officials, made DOH, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Department of Interior and Local Government to enter into a Joint Memorandum Circular to implement the Regional AIDS Assistance Teams that will provide, among others, technical assistance to HIV prevention and control activities of local government units.

The LGUs are also putting up Local AIDS Councils and launching AIDS awareness activities.

Still, DOH expressed apprehensions over the receptivity of Filipino culture that finds sex education or anything to do with sexuality a taboo or proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable.

DOH also said there will be challenges existing for implementing schools due to “weak institutional capacity to integrate HIV/AIDS education in the curricula of various grade levels” and opposition from the church itself. (FREEMAN NEWS)