Health syllabus ‘dishonest’

Press, 18 June 1983, Page 27

Health syllabus ‘dishonest’

Wellington reporter The draft health syllabus for schools has been described as “a totally dishonest document” by the Women’s National Abortion Action Campaign. This was because the department officials and independent appointees to the drafting committee had been “required to put the political well-being of the Government ahead of the real health needs of schoolchildren.”

The Campaign found five main failures in the syllabus:

® Sex education was too late.

• Puberty was handled separately from reproductive maturity. • Puberty, the most important physical and health change in theschoolyears, was given too little importance. ® The importance of fertility control for women to achieve equality was ignored.

® It ignored the Child Health Report on sex education.

The health syllabus had given details of public controversy about sex education, but had failed completely to give any data and statistical information about identifiable health needs, the Campaign said.

There was no data on venereal disease, sexual abuse of young people, birth by schoolgirls, or abortion. The syllabus did not say

how many students had to end their schooling because of pregnancy. “A syllabus that purports to address health needs, but pays heed to controversy instead is a fraudulent document deliberately misleading the public,” the Campaign said.

It asked how the NiZ.E.I. and P.P.T.A. appointees to the drafting committee could have compromised their students when they knew what was needed.