I’ve done community work and research on sexual health issues in South Asia, and with the diaspora in the UK, for nearly two decades. On countless occassions, parents have told me they want to take their children out of sex education lessons, citing religious concerns. Last year, a Bengali woman in London told me these classes were “haram [forbidden by Islamic teaching] to our communities and we would want our children to opt out of this in school”.
In February 2019, the Department for Education released new relationships and sex education (RSE) guidance for all UK schools, updating the curriculum for the first time in 20 years following a period of consultations with parents, teachers and religious groups. This new guidance which will come into effect in September 2020, covers education for primary as well as secondary school students, including general health education for all ages.
Significantly, the new guidance is LGBTIQ inclusive; it teaches primary school students, for example, about the existence of LGBTIQ families. It obliges schools to increase the time they spend teaching students about menstrual health and informed consent, and also introduces new guidance on risks related to social media and the internet, for instance ‘sexting’ and ‘revenge porn’.
