The head of the Sexual Health Centre (SHC) in Cork has said that take-up of its sex education programmes by .jpg)
schools in the area is “patchy” and called for the State to rigorously monitor schools on the issue.
Deirdre Seery, CEO of the SHC, said the centre was involved in Transition Year and fifth and sixth year programmes in only around 50pc of Cork schools, and the take-up for its junior programmes was “much lower”.
The Sexual Health Centre is a non-governmental organisation which gives sexual health advice to young people.
“This may not mean that the schools are not providing programmes, but some schools are paying lip-service to it, and dealing with it in a ‘tick box’ way. However, some schools in Cork take the issue very seriously, and bring us in to support them,” Ms Seery said.
Figures show that the majority of people in Ireland do not have sex until they reach age of 17.
However, Ms Seery said that young people were under significant peer pressure to have sex, and claimed that high quality sexual health education led to young people delaying sexual relationships until later in life.
“[I]t’s not the case that sexual health education promotes sex,” she said.
Ms Seery called on the Department of Education to assess sex education “more rigorously”.
Ms Seery said the SHC’s experience on the ground in Cork would to a certain extent bear out the findings in a survey published by condom manufacturer Durex this week, that 30pc of Irish men and women never received any sexual health education at school.
However she said that a recent survey of people aged 18+ by the HSE’s Crisis Pregnancy Programme found that levels of sex education had improved, as had perceptions of the usefulness of programmes.
While most of the SHC programmes are provided to transition year students, she said that the centre had recently developed a specific programme for second years.
“However, we won’t be happy until we are in 100% of the schools,” she added.