Mal Fletcher comments on the role of parents, schools and government in sex education

Mal Fletcher

A new UK-based international report into sexual behaviour places England at the top of four other European countries for adolescent sexual coercion and violence.

The report, which sampled 4000 children aged 13 to 17, shows that hundreds of thousands of teenage girls in Britain are being coerced into sexual activity by a boyfriend.

The study, undertaken by Bristol's School for Policy Studies, shows that two in five girls aged between 13 and 17 have endured sexual coercion in various forms. Twenty percent of girls have suffered violence at the hands of a boyfriend.

A spokesperson for the NSPCC has said that, 'The levels of victimisation revealed by this research show action is urgently needed by the government to make updated sex and relationship education a statutory right for every child and young person.'

Actually, this study reveals two lessons which we ignore at our peril. The first is that sex education in schools is failing.

It is not failing simply because the type of instruction is lacking. It is failing because governments, via their proxies - public and private schools - are not best placed to provide the type of education young people need most.

It may fly in the face of accepted political orthodoxy, but it is still true that government agencies are less well equipped than parents to provide nurture for children.

This is perhaps particularly true in the highly emotive and individualised area of sexual development, identity and behaviour.

The Bristol study shows that many families are failing their children, with parents perhaps assuming that sex education is something best handled by 'the experts' in schools.

There is a vast difference, too seldom acknowledged, between providing young people with biological information and discussing - in some cases, promoting - the details of various sexual techniques.

In an age saturated with overt sexual material in the media - and even more so, online - many teenagers learn the basic mechanics of sexual behaviour from an early age.

What many lack, however, is the emotional maturity to properly handle their curiosity, their hormones or the rapid physiological changes they're experiencing.

This is why parents are so important to their children's sexual development.

They, not government proxies, are best placed to offer the patient nurturing teens need as they negotiate the sometimes traumatic phase of sexual awakening.