I have had the occasion to listen to Michael Myles, Programme Coordinator at the Ministry of Education & Higher Education, give some speeches and I have been impressed. One such speech, where he pushed very hard for parents to stand up and be counted and support teachers as they cannot educate pupils on their own, caused me to go up and congratulate him. It was a powerful speech and he was right.

Therefore I was surprised and disappointed in his response to the petition by teenager Madeleine Rowell who wants sex education to be compulsory in all schools.

He said sex education is not one of the most important subjects. “It’s a delicate balance,” he said. “Is it more important than teaching them literacy or numeracy? How do we do that with children that are struggling? Is it more important? We’re trying to strike a balance. It cannot dominate everything of what the child needs at this point.”

M/s Rowell was not saying sex education is MORE important than teaching adolescents literacy or numeracy. She was petitioning for schools to “adopt a national sexual education curriculum which is based on proven best practices of comprehensive, age appropriate information for students of all ages, but specifically for those in middle and high school, and to improve youth access to this information, testing, and contraception aimed at reducing the risk of contracting STIs and/or unwanted pregnancy by improving access to the aforementioned at the schools, health centres, and via willing community partners working with youth.”

Nowhere does she say sex education should be included at the expense of other important subjects. However she was saying it was a VERY important subject and therefore I have to 100% disagree with Myles when he says it is NOT one of the most important subjects.

The Cayman Islands National School Policy states government schools in the Cayman Islands are entitled to teach sex education in their curriculum, but it is NOT compulsory for all students.

And, according to M/s Rowell it is rarely taught at all.

I was expecting Myles to say he would be pushing the government to make sex education compulsory in all schools including non-government ones.

At least Deputy Principal of John Gray High School, Marie Pride, told CITN/Cayman27 “I think it’s a really important part of the curriculum alongside things like drug education and health education.”

Thank you M/s Pride.

I would ask Myles to read a very comprehensive study “The impact of schools and school programs upon adolescent sexual behavior” written by Douglas Kirby.

You can download and read the full text at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00224490209552116

The following article contains many references to other studies and the following is only a small portion of text from it:

Because most youth are enrolled in school for many years before they initiate sex and when they initiate sex, schools have the potential for reducing adolescent sexual risk taking. This paper reviews studies which examine the impact upon sexual risk taking of school involvement, school characteristics, specific programs in school that do not address sexual behavior, and specific programs that do address sexual risk taking. Multiple studies support several conclusions. First, involvement in and attachment to school and plans to attend higher education are all related to less sexual risk taking and lower pregnancy rates. Second, students in schools with manifestations of poverty and disorganization are more likely to become pregnant. Third, some school programs specifically designed to increase attachment to school or reduce school dropout effectively delayed sex or reduced pregnancy rate, even when they may not address sexuality. Fourth, sex and HIV education programs do not increase sexual behavior, and some programs decrease sexual activity and increase condom or contraceptive use. Fifth, school based clinics and school condom availability programs do not increase sexual activity, and either may or may not increase condom or contraceptive use. Other studies reveal that there is very broad support for comprehensive sex and HIV education programs, and accordingly, most youth receive some amount of sex or HIV education. However, important topics are not covered in many schools.

Schools are the one institution in our society regularly attended by most young people—nearly 95% of all youth aged 5 to 17 years are enrolled in elementary or secondary schools (National Center for Education Statistics, 1993). Furthermore, virtually all youth attend schools for years before they initiate sexual risk-taking behaviors, and a majority are enrolled at the time they initiate intercourse. These facts raise a variety of questions that this paper will attempt to partially answer: (a) Does simply being in school have an impact upon adolescent sexual risk-taking? Does greater attachment to school? (b) Does enrollment in schools with particular characteristics reduce the chances of sexual risk-taking? (c) Through what mechanisms do schools reduce sexual risk-taking? (d) Are there school- based programs that do not focus on any aspect of sexuality but that nevertheless reduce sexual risk-taking? (e) Are there school-based programs that do focus upon some aspect of sexuality and do reduce sexual risk-taking? (f) If so, is there broad public support for these programs and how broadly are they implemented?

IMPACT OF SCHOOL INVOLVEMENT

There are a variety of kinds of evidence suggesting that being in school does reduce sexual risk-taking behavior. In a multitude of developing countries around the world, as the percentage of girls completing elementary school has increased over time the teen birth rates have decreased. In the United States, youth who have dropped out of school are more likely to initiate sex earlier, to fail to use contraception to become pregnant, and to give birth. Clearly, there are self-selection effects in these analyses, but the evidence also suggests that there is some causal impact. That is, youth who drop out of school are different in many ways from youth who do not drop out of school, even before they drop out, but dropping out appears to increase their sexual risk-taking behavior.

In addition, among youth who are in school, greater attachment is associated with less sexual risk-taking. In particular, investment in school, school involvement, attachment to school, or school performance have been found to be related to age of initiation of sex, frequency of sex, pregnancy, and childbearing. Finally, plans to attend college are also related to initiation of sex, use of condoms, use of contraception, pregnancy, and childbearing.

Just as youth in communities with high rates of poverty and social disorganization are more likely to become pregnant, so youth in schools with high rates of poverty and social disorganization are also more likely to become pregnant. In particular, when female teens attend schools with higher percentages of students receiving a free lunch, with higher school dropout rates and with higher rates of school vandalism, they are more likely to become pregnant. Reflecting the relative lack of opportunity and greater disorganization in some minority communities in this country, teens in schools with higher percentages of minority students are also more likely to have higher pregnancy rates than teens in schools with lower percentages of minority students. In these studies, it is often difficult to distinguish the impact of school characteristics from the impact of the community characteristics in which they reside.

Aside from the studies which (a) measure the relationship between student characteristics and student sexual behavior or (b) measure the impact of particular programs in schools (e.g., sex and HIV education programs, school-based clinics, or school condom-avail- ability programs), remarkably few studies have measured the impact of school structure and school characteristics upon adolescent sexual behavior. Because school characteristics and programs can undoubtedly have an impact upon adolescents’ plans for their future and their motivation to avoid childbearing, this is an understudied area of research. More research is clearly needed in this area.

POSSIBLE MECHANISMS OF SCHOOL IMPACT

Social scientists and educators have proffered a wide variety of explanations for how schools reduce sexual risk-taking behavior. Some of their explanations have empirical research supporting them, while others are plausible, but lack supporting research. For example, educators concerned with adolescent sexual behavior have suggested that:

1.Schools structure students’ time and limit the amount of time that students can be alone and engage in sex.

2. Schools increase interaction with and attachment to adults who discourage risk-taking behavior of any kind (e.g., substance use, sexual risk taking, or accident- producing behavior). More generally, they create an environment which discourages risk taking.

3. Schools affect selection of friends and larger peer groups that are important to them. Because peer norms about sex and contraception significantly influence teens’ behavior, this impact of schools may be substantial. However, just how schools affect selection of friends and peers is not clearly understood.

4. Schools can increase belief in the future and help youth plan for higher education and careers. Such planning may increase the motivation to avoid early childbearing. As noted above, multiple studies demonstrate that educational and career aspirations are related to use of contraception, pregnancy, and childbearing.

5. Schools can increase students’ self-esteem, sense of competence, and communication and refusal skills. These skills may help students avoid unprotected sex. Although all of these explanations (as well as others) are plausible, and some have empirical support, in general, this is also an understudied area of research.

There are at least three important reasons why effective programs are not implemented more broadly. First, schools devote relatively little time to health education more generally, and to sex and HIV education more specifically. Because the effective programs last for numerous class periods, teachers have difficulty fitting them into their semester curricula. Second, the effective programs include activities that some parents and communities oppose, because they fear they will sanction and encourage sexual activity. Third, many teachers and school districts do not realize that some sex and HIV education programs have strong evidence for their success.

CONCLUSIONS

The research on the impact of schools upon adolescent sexual behavior is quite uneven. On the one hand, there is relatively little research on the impact upon sexual behavior of school structure and non-sexuality-focused school programs. On the other hand, there is much more research on school programs that address sexuality, especially sex and HIV education programs and, to a lesser extent, school- based clinics and school condom-availability programs. Additional research on the impact of school structure and non-sexuality-focused programs may be very productive.

Despite the limitations of this body of research, there is evidence to support several conclusions. Programs that effectively decrease school dropout and improve attachment to school, school performance, and educational and career aspirations are likely to either delay sex, increase condom or contraceptive use, or decrease pregnancy and childbearing. Service learning programs have especially strong evidence for reducing teen pregnancy. Those sex and STD/HIV education programs with identified common characteristics can also delay sex, reduce the frequency of sex, increase condom or contraceptive use, or decrease pregnancy and childbearing. School-based clinics and school condom-availability programs do not increase any measure of sexual behavior, but may or may not increase condom or contraceptive use.

Despite the many controversies, there is broad public support for sex education in public schools, including sup- port for instruction about condoms and contraceptives. Consequently, most schools provide some sex education instruction, but many do not cover important topics and relatively few schools implement with fidelity those programs that have been demonstrated to be effective. Thus, implementing effective programs both with fidelity and more widely may reduce sexual risk taking behavior among adolescents.

END

Perhaps Michael Myles will now change his mind and put his 100% support behind young Madeleine Rowell’s petition.