2023-07-25 05:50:50
The General Law of Education was installed in 2008 and marked a break for sexual education in the country: since then, according to what is established by law, the authorities “will ensure” that sexual education, among other axes, is a “transversal line” present in the National Education System, “in the way that is considered most convenient, in the different plans and programs”.
The establishment of transversality without a form specification guarantees that it is an axis addressed in the different educational subsystems, but also enables sexual education to be embodied from the optional or from the mandatory, as a subject or as a workshop, with more or fewer hours, depending on what the authorities on duty decide.
It was within this framework that last year compulsory sexual education was hanging by a thread in the UTU curriculum, and the Central Board of Directors (Codicen) received a consultancy from the United Nations Population Fund in which they recommended that the subject be part of the compulsory curriculum.
Now sexual education as a compulsory learning space is back at stake with the second phase of implementation of the educational reform promoted by the National Administration of Public Education (ANEP), according to statements from teacher training.
In recent days the issue has reached the tables of the Codicen: last week it took place in a bipartisan instance between the education authorities and the Coordinator of Education Unions of Uruguay, and on Monday sex education teachers from Training in Education met with the Codicen teacher advisors to express their concern.
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Specifically, the teachers assure that the information that is known so far about the modifications to the 2008 Plan that the educational reform will bring in the last three years of the careers does not include the sexual education seminar workshop: a mandatory seminar for second-year students of secondary education teachers.
Fernando Álvarez, one of the teachers, explained to the daily that currently the seminar is 30 hours, which implies that students must take ten classes within a semester. “Maybe, like [la reforma] is in the process of being prepared, due to error or omission [el seminario] It does not appear, but it is necessary that at this moment that it is satisfied it is maintained, that it reappears as such ”, Álvarez wielded.
It is that, for the teacher, otherwise, those who are preparing to “exercise the teaching role in the future will not have the minimum basic tools necessary to be in front of a classroom where we are with adolescents, precisely in that stage of life so fundamental to have the knowledge”. Likewise, he emphasized that the seminar is being held at the national level, and that if the current line is continued, there would also be job losses.
Between mainstreaming and optionality
Beyond the changes that are envisioned in the training of teachers for Secondary and UTU with regard to sexual education, Álvarez also described other possible changes for teacher training in early childhood and common and social educators.
Some points are also viewed with concern -although to a lesser degree than with secondary education-, and others as an improvement: Álvarez highlighted that in Early Childhood and Primary Education a sexual education workshop is held, but he stressed that in teaching the workload is reduced, from 30 to 20 hours, and that the title of the workshop would be renamed “Health and sexuality”, which could reduce the course to a mere “biologist or hygienist” approach.
In this sense, he pointed out that the modification could imply “less knowledge on the part of primary education teachers and, at the same time, a detriment in the loss of jobs.” On the other hand, he highlighted as something positive that for the training of social educators, sex education is proposed as a semester subject, when up to now it has been taught under the seminar modality.
Based on the Education Law, transversality is proposed by the ANEP for future teachers of secondary education also in this second phase of application of the reform. Víctor Pizzichillo, president of the Education Training Council (CFE), told the daily that together with the education authorities they are “clear that the Study Plan has to respect the transversal lines that the Education Law has. That is not at issue. Then there are the approaches that some have, that others have, these are secondary issues”.
In this context, he affirmed that it is not the idea that the sexual education seminar ceases to be, although he argued that they are still working on defining the educational offer for 2024. Even so, he confirmed that the space will not disappear because “there is an axis that is Health and Sexuality” in which it is included. According to Pizzichillo, all students may have the possibility of taking the seminar, but optionally, within this axis, in any of the years of the degree.
“The content and training objectives are distributed in different spaces,” he stated. In a similar vein, she highlighted that “sex education is not eliminated, but rather that the conception is transversality and not anchored in a curricular unit. It is not ignoring the advances and needs in this field of training, but rather the approach is a little different”, stated the president of the CFE.
Asked about the training of the different teachers on sexual education to be able to bring the subject to their classes, Pizzichillo said that the CFE is developing complementary training courses, and that this axis will be addressed in September, along with other related topics.
Between insufficient and non-existence
For Álvarez, however, transversality is not enough. He stressed that up to now it has materialized in the seminar and that, if it disappears, sex education “vanishes”, because there would be “no one specific who is going to give this type of information”. He pointed out that, for example, subjects such as neurosciences and socio-affective processes are presented in which the subject can be more mainstreamed, but he emphasized that “if we are not the specialists in sexuality topics, what will happen is that sexuality education will be absorbed by teachers who are not trained to provide this type of topic.”
Regarding the possibility of the seminar being given optionally, based on what was stated by the president of the CFE, Álvarez assured that in this way “we would fall into the training of ‘first’ and ‘second’ teacher students”. And so “only some future teachers would be prepared to face such diverse topics in the classroom as coexistence and the promotion of healthy ties, discrimination, bullying inside and outside the classroom, respect, equity and inclusion of diversity, and responsible and safe care of digital citizenship”.
On the other hand, the sex education teacher argued that the axis of “Health and Sexuality” at the level of teachers in secondary education to which Pizzichillo refers “does not exist, it does not appear in the curricular units. It is a transversal fiction if it fails to materialize in practical realities”. He specified that he is currently present in the Teaching career.
At the same time, for Álvarez this point “is questionable” for the same reason as in the case of teachers: because “it follows a hygienist and/or biologist paradigm, for which reason the integrality of said sexual education would disappear”, since “the promotion of human rights, the real search for gender equality, the necessary understanding and action towards diversity and above all the lack of socio-affective-emotional and bonding” would be left aside.
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