The Irish Department of Education has just closed a consultation period for the revamping of its Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) curriculum for young teenagers in post-primary schools.
The proposal which the minister for education has said will be compulsory for all schools, if retained in its current guise, will force Catholic schools to promote a morality that does not align with Catholic teaching.
The draft Junior Cycle Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) Short Course proposal presented by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has a stated that its aim is to "to nurture students’ self-awareness and positive self-worth and to develop the knowledge, understanding, skills, dispositions and values that will help them to create and maintain respectful and caring relationships and lead fulfilling and healthy lives" – a laudable objective in itself.
