“We must talk about sexuality at school,” Education Minister Pap Ndiaye said on Monday. FranceInfo. Following in his footsteps, Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, the president of the High Council for Equality between Women and Men (HCE), also pleaded the next day for the development of sex education at school. “You have to do it as quickly as possible, from primary school onwards, there are lessons to be taught, adapted to each age, so that from childhood, equality, respect, consent are integrated into the psychology “, she declared to the Assembly, where she was auditioned.
Certainly since 2001, sex education has been compulsory in schools, colleges and high schools: a minimum of three annual sessions must be organised. These “contribute to learning the respect due to the human body and raise awareness of sexist or sexual violence as well as female sexual mutilation”, specifies the legislation. They can be provided by teachers, nurses or school doctors, or even external contributors approved by the National Education.
“Some teachers are not very comfortable addressing the issue”
But it is clear that these sessions often go down the drain, as the minister himself admitted. “There are great variations according to schools, classes, territories,” he said on France Info. According to our information, an Inspection report drawing the same conclusions will be released on September 22. A survey by #NousToutes, published last February *, already alerted on the subject: at the end of secondary school, students attended on average less than 3 of the 21 compulsory sessions from CP to terminale. The majority of these sessions being provided by the SVT teacher, during the college years. In addition, according to the study, “psycho-emotional and legal themes are hardly addressed, leaving room for a purely biological approach to affective and sexual life”.
Asked by 20 minutes on the reasons explaining the weakness of this sexual education, the entourage of Pap Ndiaye advance several explanations: “Some teachers are not very comfortable to approach the question or fear hostile reactions of parents of pupils. Others consider that they already have a lot to do to complete the programs and consider this teaching optional, when it is not”. According to Alexis Torchet, national secretary of the Sgen-CFDT, it is also a question of local political voluntarism: “It all depends on how the academies take up the subject. That of Créteil, for example, is very active. Others are less so. Moreover, some private establishments make the ideological choice not to address the issue or do so in a biased way, as we saw in Stanislas last year “. In a document published at the start of the school year, the HCE also denounces “serious cases of disinformation by students on sex education and contraception” in “private establishments under contract. »
Pedagogical support will be provided to teachers
This lack of sexuality education has important consequences for young people. “Fighting against ignorance and the invasion of pornography in adolescent circles, or even among the youngest, is an emergency. If we do nothing, we are preparing for the violence and feminicides of tomorrow, ”said Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette. Pap Ndiaye also insisted on the challenges of better sex education at school: “We must improve this situation both for public health objectives, such as reducing teenage pregnancies or combating sexually transmitted diseases, but also for more general objectives related to the fight against discrimination, sexual and gender-based violence…”, he recalled on France Info.
And the minister already has a small idea of how he wants to go about it: “He will work to build new tools for teachers”, explains to 20 minutes her entourage. That is to say educational documents to help them address the issue in class. Will also be imagined “new educational sequences around children’s literature”. “Because it is by supporting teachers better that they will be able to approach the subject more easily”. This is also why the HCE recommends “the constitution of a corpus adapted to each age group based on the work and the tools developed by the associations which know how, in contact with the pupils, to modulate the format of their actions”.
Still, the subject is explosive, and the minister already knows that he will have to face criticism from those who do not want the subject to be discussed at school. The far-right ex-candidate for the presidential election Eric Zemmour has already launched the controversy: “Do not let outsiders explain to your 6-year-old daughter that if she wants, she can become a boy”, has he launched to his supporters last Sunday. “I want lookouts in every school,” he insisted. “Some do not share our vision of what the school of the Republic should be. But that should not make us give up relaunching sex education, ”insists the minister’s entourage.