For Pride month this year, we reflect on the suppression of LGBTQIA+ identities in the sexual education curriculum in Singapore!
It's time for the curriculum to be updated to protect LGBT individuals and serve the wider society's biological, mental and social health needs.
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It’s time for LGBTQIA+ inclusive sex ed!
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SG today:
In Singapore, the approach to sexual education places the main responsibility on parents for imparting values. However, the education system supplements these teachings at different points and programs from Primary to Pre-tertiary levels.
Though MOE has emphasized the secularity of their sexual education, the curriculum continues to perpetuate conservative and religiously-based beliefs and ideals. Moreover, schools, including independent and faith-based schools, may supplement curriculums with their own programs.
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MOE’s Guiding principles
“Knowledge, skills and values that reflect that of mainstream society”
“Aligned with our national values of encouraging heterosexual married couples…, and to build stable nuclear family units with extended family support.”
The curriculum’s key themes
Interpersonal Relationships
The skills and values for healthy and rewarding relationships with friends and family, including the opposite sex.
Culture, Society and Law
Societal, cultural and legal influences on sexual identity and sexual expressions.
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Queer identities, issues and topics should not be ignored in hopes that it will go away. The reality is that the LGTBQIA+ community exists, and members who choose to be sexually active will continue to do so. They deserve institutional support and education to impart values of safe sex and to protect them from sexually transmitted infections.
Queer representation is much needed in education – its inclusivity is imperative for the betterment of wider society’s biological, mental, and social health. Conversely, its exclusion from sexual education curriculums only works to suppress and endanger them.
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Here are a few resources we found useful!
Health Promotion Board – https://www.hpb.gov.sg/article/faqs-on-sexuality
@sexed.gay on Instagram
We want to hear from you! How do you think sexual education can be more inclusive? What do you wish that you have learned?
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Sources
Ministry of Education
Rice Media
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