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Take It or Leave It
With Austin Ejiet |
Sex education in schools? Good luck!
Dec 14 - 20, 2003
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Most schools have closed for the Christmas holidays. As a guardian to numerous orphans and other members of the extended family of school going age, I have been receiving the usual heart-stopping demands for school fees, money for school uniforms, duplicating and photocopying paper, toiletries etc. The school reports, especially for the 'O' level section, bear an astonishing array of subjects, ranging from 15 to 20. No kidding. When I went to 'O' level, the mandatory number of subjects you could offer was 8. The absolute maximum allowed by any school was nine subjects. That number has more than doubled. Which is fine with me. The world has to move forward whether we like it or not. And if Political Education or Computer studies happen along, we just have to take them in our stride or perish.
But there is one thing, which worries me. The day has remained only 24 hours long. The week is still the old fashioned 7 days, and the month is variously still only 28/9, 30, or 31 days. The term is still only 3 or so months. So where is the extra time for all the excess baggage coming from? The period traditionally set aside for recreation has been an easy and obvious casualty. No more sports. No more drama. No more foolish debates or weekly discos. No more weekends. Even day students have to report to school (with an appropriate fee, of course) for extra classes during weekends or holidays. In addition to all this, some pupils are still 'coached' by private tutors in the privacy of their homes, despite the official policy outlawing coaching. Somebody, thinking aloud at a political rally or some other public function, suggests that the remedy for a given shortcoming might be to teach it in the primary, high schools or university. And bingo! Before you can recite the Lord's Prayer, the subject has been created, introduced and implemented. Sometimes one gets the impression that certain institutions of higher learning can teach anything under the sun. But at least at that level, the victims are supposedly mature enough to make informed choices, especially as the majority of them have to fork out their own tuition fees. The primary school teachers and his/her pupils do not have the same choices. Yes, HIV/AIDS is still cutting down Ugandans with unmitigated ferocity, despite the glowing statistics. But sex education for pre-adolescent school children? Just like that? Without a national syllabus or guidelines of any sort? Without some kind of training for teachers? Will there be practicals to reinforce the theory? Has the time come for some of us to dust up our teaching diplomas in anticipation of sinfulorgies in school of the right gender? Just kidding. Give it a go by all means. Me, I am old fashioned. And I am not necessarily right. But I think sex education must begin and end with the family. The aunt/uncle as a sex counsellor might be a dying institution. But there is no excuse for parents not to be involved in the gradual transition of their children to adulthood. In a hectic rat race where both mother and father must hold down a job, the housegirl or nanny has become the mother. Even after the kids have been shipped off to day-care centres politely called pre-nurseries and kindergartens, the housegirl remains the most dominant influence. Then television, videos and the Internet take over as supplementary suppliers of values. After that it is off to boarding school, romantic novels and peer groups. Before long, your sweet little daughter begins wearing waist beads on the outside. She begins sporting G-strings. And she develops the audacity to attend holiday beach bashes, sometimes staying away overnight using cash provided by the parents. And for some reason you, the parents, see nothing wrong until the virus strikes. Don't allow your kids to be raised by housegirls, music videos, dubious movies, and licentious peer groups, and then expect the teacher to perform miracles. But they are not magicians. They can only reinforce what their pupils have already learnt from their parents. |
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