WATCH: KwaDukuza parents demand Education Dept drop Comprehensive Sex Education syllabus

KwaDukuza town echoed to the chorus of dozens of mothers, fathers and children last Thursday demanding that the Education Department drop the newly rolled out Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) syllabus from the national school curriculum.

However the Education department says the CSE syllabus has not changed since 2001 and they are only piloting the use of scripted lesson plans.

The organisation People Movement, founded by CEO and Pastor Nel Sewraj, marched with more than 50 concerned residents from the Stanger Town Hall to the Department of Education Lower Tugela Circuit office to deliver a memorandum of demand to circuit area manager Dr Blose.

Chanting ‘my child, my choice’ and ‘CSE must fall’, King Shaka Street was brought to a standstill together with other marches around the country, in partnership with the ‘Leave Our Kids Alone’ movement, as the parents together with their kids declared war on the compulsory syllabus module to children as young as Grade 4 pupils.

The CSE syllabus, according to People Movement, will sexualise young children by teaching young children about ‘private parts’ in school, and introducing them to topics such as anal and oral sex, which People Movement claims young children are not prepared for.

“Our government must learn to do its job while we as parents do our job,” said Sewraj to the cheering supporters.

“It is our right to teach our children about sex according to our values, not the government’s.”

People came out from their shops and places of business nearby to hear Sewraj explain the problem with the country’s approach to sex education.

“We cannot allow our incompetent government to teach our Grade 4 learners, for example, about masturbation. They can barely teach our children English and maths but they want to teach them about sex.”

Police escorted the crowd to the Lower Tugela Circuit office where they handed over the memorandum to Dr Blose. The group said they were prepared to work with the Education department to find a solution.

“Parents are prepared to boycott schools if this is implemented and we will be clamoring outside the gates,” said Sewraj.

Elijah Mhlanga, chief director of media liaison for the Education department, dismissed the claims by People Movement and the Leave Our Kids Alone movement as ‘fake news’.

“It is sexuality education, not sex education. It is age appropriate scientifically obtained information which is used to teach learners how to protect themselves from sexual assault,” he said.

According to the department website, children who want to opt out of CSE will need to remove the entire Life Orientation (LO) curriculum from their learning stream and replace it with an equivalent curriculum.

However Mhlanga said that as the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) syllabus is implemented by public school entities, removing LO and therefore CSE would effectively leave a child no choice but to leave the school and join another that follows an alternative stream of education such as the Cambridge system.

“In public schools CAPS is the official curriculum which is set down for all to teach. It is not optional that you can opt out, you cannot do so unless you remove your children from public schools completely,” said Mhlanga.

According to Mhlanga the CSE syllabus has not changed since 2001.

“We are piloting the use of scripted lesson plans,” said Mhlanga, referring to the 1,500 schools across the country chosen to participate in the pilot program.

All 1,500 schools have been chosen from areas of high sexual violence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS however Mhlangu had not responded at the time of going to print with the names of the schools to be included.

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