Sexual education in Portuguese schools

Portugal was a pioneer in the connection between health promotion and school. In 1901, it had already been created the Scholar Sanitary Inspection, mainly focused in the controlling of epidemics and endemics.

With the passage of time, school's role has been transformed, and it is no longer just a place where knowledge is transmitted; is now faced as the domain of education broadly understood, including in this concept the citizenship promotion, involving deepening of the sense of personal and social responsibility. It is in this context that the education for health in schools is framed, a goal which has won great strength in the educational projects of the Portuguese schools during the last decade.

Associated to health education appears sex education as one of its many facets, in an approach that has been the promotion of health in the broadest sense, involving the physical, psychological and social well-being. Thus, in the year 1999 a law, which strengthens guarantees regarding reproductive health was published; in 2000 it was attributed to the schools the role of integrating strategies to promote sexual health not only by organizing activities to develop curriculums, but also activities to complete curriculum, always requiring a school-family relationship.

The Portuguese legislation foresees the sex education in a school context, in primary and secondary school, and is embedded in the educational programs for health, along with nutrition, physical activity and the prevention of harmful consumption and violence in the school environment.

Only in 2005 the government made mandatory the inclusion of health education in educational projects for each school. Later, in August 2009, was regulated by law of Parliament, the requirement for planning specific time in the curriculum for sex education. Until publication of this law, approaches to sex education were not universal or regular, depending greatly on the willingness of teachers in classes and teams of draft health education. The law of August 2009, reaffirms the need for sex education arise from the complementarity of roles between family and school on behalf of existing conceptions of pluralism in Portuguese society. Already in April this year the Government set out the content to be addressed in sexual education. These are long and variable depending on the course. Are distributed across all years of primary and secondary education.

1st to 4th year deal, among others, topics such as:

• The notion of body and harmony with nature and the social and cultural environment;
• The notion of family;
• Differences between boys and girls;
• Body protection and limitations on abusive approaches.

In the 5th and 6th grade, new topics are introduced, such as:

• Puberty and its defining transformations;
• Sexuality and gender;
• Human reproduction and growth;
• Birth control and family planning;
• Menstrual and ovulatory cycles;
• Maltreatment and abusive approximations;
• Ethical extent of human sexuality.

Between the 7th and the 9th grades, those topics are recalled and new ones are introduced

•  STD (sexual transmitted diseases) and its impact worldwide;
• Motherhood an fatherhood in youth;
• Voluntary interruption of pregnancy, meaning and consequences.

Between the 10th and 12th grades, knowledge on the previous topics are deepened, focusing in ethic approach to human sexuality. Other topics such as:

• Initiation in sexual relationships in Portugal and in the European Union;
• Pregnancy and abortion rate in Portugal and in the European Union;
• Contraceptive methods, its safety and reasons of improper contaception.

Our "Summer Love" story

Maria wrote in our facebook page:
"Mistakes of the past follow you and can change your life for good....

Read the 3rd part of our "summer love" story, written by the Polish team. The imagination of the authors is great. Congratulations!"

Now, Romania is taking the lead!

Click here to read "Summer Love" story.

WHAT IS YOUR SEXUAL ATTITUDE ?

Our etwinning questionnaire about human sexuality is considered an important part of our project, in order to develop sexual education with students.

The questionnaire is a result of several contributes. It is based on Jorge Rocha’s and Maria Sourgiadaki’s work on a questionnaire of Maria João Alves (leader of PPES in Escola Secundária Henriques Nogueira) and on a sexual education guide, approved by the Greek Ministry of Education. Finally, there are some questions suggested by students.
We are asking for completely honest answers.Your opinion is important so that we get information from your sexual attitude to analyse and discuss upon it.

The whole process of getting information and its use will be controlled by this etwinning project team, which gives you guarantee of confidentiality and anonymity. Data will be statistically processed in an aggregate way.

Soon the questionnaire will be available to be filled, either by students or by adults (with the appropriate adaptations).

A trip in Easter and Valentine's day by chat

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On April, 29 I had my first conversation with our polish friends: teacher Milena, Patrycja J. and Patrycja K. (students).

First of all we talked about ourselves: who we were, what we were doing at that moment and some other personal issues. After that, we talked about Easter traditions in our countries. I said that in Portugal we usually eat chocolate eggs and small animals (we all agree that this is a cruel tradition). Our polish friends said that they go to church and they take some food with them during this period.

Then we talked about Valentine's Day traditions. In both countries this is a day dedicated to people who are in love, not only for their boyfriends/girlfriends but also for their friends, parents...we can show our love through many different ways! Related with the topic of love, we talked about marriage «habits» in our countries. For example, in Portugal people from the same sex can get married but they cannot adopt children. However, homosexuals aren't allowed to marry in Poland. We spoke about the influence of these rules to societies.

Then, teacher Jorge Rocha, from Portugal, joined the conversation and we talked about the visit to the mountain that our friends were going to do.We had a small conversation because me, Patrycja J. and Patrycja K. had tests in the following day, but I really loved to be in the chat with them, they are incredible and very nice people!

Now I hope to talk with all our friends, from other countries too, to discuss new ideas and go on with this Trip =)

Alice Martins - 11ºA

Sexual education in Romania schools

In Romania it is legal to speak about the sexual education in schools but we don’t have teachers who speak about because law does not approve. In the High Schools it is absolutely ok to exist some people who are interested in learning students about this problem. Appropriate sex education might therefore have a major role in preventing some sexual problems in adulthood.

Sex education can help to:

• prevent the spread of sexual diseases;
• prevent unwanted pregnancies;
• by preventing unwanted pregnancies, prevent unnecessary abortions;
• learning to form responsible views on own sexual behavior;
• encourage resistance to group pressure to engage in unwanted sexual activities;
• understanding the difference between male and female views on romantic relations;
• understanding that sex is part of the normal life of most adult people (at least in some stage of their life), and not something which need to be associated with feelings of shame and guilt.

Without sex education, young people will learn about sex from porn movies, which give a distorted view of sex and human relationships. It is best to start sex education as early as possible, in simple ways, and then learn more each year. In that way, the children will feel that this is just natural common knowledge, things they have "always" known.

In Romania, I mean in the High Schools there are not teachers who teach you about the sexual education. I think it would be a good idea to exist teachers to speak and teach you what to do from a young age (14-15 years old). Some schools offer no sex education, since it remains a controversial issue in several countries.

Taught properly, sexual education and development could easily become part of any other scientific course of study like Human Biology, Human Behavior, Human Anatomy or Health. More importantly, perhaps if administrators present a more dignified and academic approach to the delivery of sexual education, complete with test and grades, it may just impress upon the children that they should view sex a serious part of their human development rather than a recreational activity.

Results of recent polls have estimated that less than 7% of the population does not believe that sexual education should be a requirement in schools. This is 93% who are in favor of this subject matter as a part of the regular curriculum. However, there are pros and cons that must be considered by parents when dealing with sexual education classes that one would not have to consider with a less controversial topic such as math or reading. In general, a parent needs to be aware of his or her own family or religious beliefs and values and know their child’s intellect and maturity levels.