Comprehensive Sexuality Education To Be Subjected To A Broader Review - Vice President
The government will constitute a multi-sectoral technical working group to review the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE)framework and curriculum before it was implemented in schools across the country.
Vice President Inonge Wina told Parliament on Friday that a technical working group will hold various consultations with various stakeholders that will include faith-based organisations, non-state actors and United Nations agencies.
She said the purpose to revise the implementation, was to consider concerns and operational gaps the new curriculum may have.
She said the consultations will be led by the Ministry of National Guidance and Religious Affairs.
Stakeholders such as the church have raised the alarm that CSE was graphic, not age-appropriate and offended the cultural and religious values of Zambia as a Christian nation.
The CSE framework is also designed to discourage discrimination against the LGBT community by teaching learners about the rights of such a community and accept it.
The framework was designed in Sweden and is part of a larger programme called Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRH&R) which is aimed as a response to the rise against teen pregnancies, STDs including HIV/AIDS, child marriages and unsafe abortions.
The two programmes also advocate for provision of reproductive health services to adolescents that include providing access of contraceptives and abortion,as a right to adolescents.
There has been a strong move to adopt it as a United Nations standard programme for schools beginning from Grade 5.
Zambia completed a pilot programme of CSE in 2019 and is now rolling out the programme across all schools.
But Hon Wina said following the complaints by many stakeholders against the programme which started in 2013 as part of the Zambia Education Curriculum revision, CSE will be subjected to a broader review by the multi-sectoral and technical groups.
This article originally appeared on Lusaka Times