[The Fountain] Going against the tide in sex education

It is the duty of the state to ensure that children receive proper sex education.

LEE KYOUNG-HEEThe author is head of the Innovation Lab of the JoongAng Ilbo. Comprehensive sex education teaches the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social aspects of sex. The sex education curriculum of Unesco’s “International Sex Education Guide” (2018) includes relationships, values, rights, culture, sexuality, gender understanding, violence and safety, health and welfare, human body and development, sexual behavior, and healthy sex and reproduction. Rather than focusing on the negative consequences of sexual behavior, such as chastity and abortion prevention, the educational perspective is to teach life skills and attitudes focusing on respecting and understanding one’s self and others and building healthy relationships.

It is also an international agreement to provide appropriate lessons based on science and facts — and in accordance with age and physical development. In fact, studies show that the age of beginning sexual activity was delayed and risky sexual behaviors decreased in places where comprehensive sex education was introduced, according to the Unesco in 2016.

In Korea, Ulsan Metropolitan City educational superintendent Noh Ok-hee, who passed away earlier this month, was the first to introduce the comprehensive sex education in the public school system. What led to the introduction was the incident in 2020 when an elementary school teacher in Ulsan assigned first graders a homework to wash underwear and made sexually harassing comments on the photos of the assignment. Despite some opposing voices against Ulsan’s comprehensive sex education, Noh was reelected earlier this year with supports of the parents.

Recently, a book that reflects the comprehensive sex education curriculum, “Professor Bae Jung-won’s Self-Esteem Sex Education for Teenagers,” was also published. It describes changes to the adolescent body, pregnancy and contraception, as well as ways to express one’s feelings toward someone, gender equality, sexual minorities and self-respect.

Korea’s education seems to go against the trend. The National Education Commission under President Yoon Suk-yeol recently passed a review of the 2022 Revised Curriculum, which removed the terms “gender equality,” “sexual minority” and “sexuality.”

The curriculum effectively excludes minorities with different sexual orientations and gender identities. It is far from French President Emmanuel Macron, who declared “free condoms for young people from age 18 to 25 from next year.” But it is the duty of the state to ensure that children receive proper sex education.