Sexuality education not approved – Education Minister declares

The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has stated that the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) has not been approved for use in schools.

“The curriculum framework (KG to Primary Six) approved by the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA) for use in the development of school curriculum, which has been approved by the Cabinet, does not include the CSE,” he said.

Addressing the media yesterday, Dr Prempeh, therefore, appealed to the public and all faith-based organisations “to exercise restraint and verify the facts of official government policy before making public pronouncements”.

The press conference was to address concerns raised by the public regarding the purported introduction of the CSE, which sparked public reaction against the move.

Assurance
“The nation should rest assured that the government and the ministry will not compromise our societal values in the delivery of quality education,” Dr Prempeh said.

He further gave an assurance that there were representatives of faith-based organisations on the governing councils of both the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the NaCCA to help ensure that the curriculum was aligned with the values of the country.

He said the only document developed by the NaCCA and which was being implemented by the GES was the standard-based curriculum, stressing that the “NaCCA has not approved any material on the CSE, as it is not included in the approved and published KG-P6 curriculum framework”.

Denial
He denied knowledge of any material containing the CSE, saying that the document on adolescent sexual reproductive health developed by the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) and the UNFPA “has got nothing to do with the curriculum we are running as a Ministry of Education”.

He added that if the National Population Council or any non-governmental organisation had developed a document on the CSE, “it does not mean that the standard-based curriculum that we have rolled out in schools thus contains CSE”.

Walking press men through the development, he said: “The fact that the UNFPA or UNESCO or UNICEF supports comprehensive sexuality education, and that in other countries there are certain rights that are legal does not mean that those rights are legal in Ghana, and the fact that we all belong to UNESCO does not mean that when UNESCO promotes an agenda, Ghana must carry it through 100 per cent,” Dr Prempeh said.

He said he was happy that it was the NPC, UNFPA and PPAG that were circulating the draft, stressing that even if somebody developed a draft document, it had to go through an approval process, and doing that did not mean that it would be accepted.

“In the document that has been accepted that we are championing, that we are using in schools, I wish you could point out where we have documented how to go about the teaching of CSE in the teacher resource packs that we have distributed to over 152,000 teachers.

“So I can emphasise, and I am categorical and insisting, that the document or those purported documents going round on comprehensive sexuality education are not owned by the Ghana government or the Ministry of Education and are not what are being implemented in our schools,” Dr Prempeh insisted.