Sex education should be mandatory in schools

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Sex education should be mandatory in schools
Over the years, the ideology of having sex education in school has attracted notable concerns and debates by people at all levels in the society ranging from school boardrooms, homes, casual workplaces and even the high courts. Nevertheless, the concept has progressively gained support with the enhancement of civilization and modernization not only in the United States but also in other developed and developing countries around the world. This scenario has most likely been inspired by initial increases in cases of unwanted or unplanned teenage pregnancies and the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as other sexually transmitted diseases (STIs).
It is understood that in occasions where sex education is evident in schools, a lot of focus is directed to ‘abstinence-only' kind of education. As a result, there is an evident concern about the curriculum of ‘sex education' to be taught in schools; it apparently fails to entail important attributes of conceiving, the use of condoms and other family planning methods as well as screening and management of sexually transmitted diseases (STIs). Family planning in the form of birth control methods including pills being made available to teenagers that are sexually active especially stands out in debates about having sex education in schools.
School going teenagers are ultimately in need of information regarding means of protecting themselves from the dangers of engaging in early sexual activities. Even though it can be argued that the overall number of teenage pregnancies occurring is manageable, it is still high, same to the rate of spread of STIs. It remains a fact to the naked eye that the youths and teenagers are the most affected age group as far as challenges posed by unguided sexual behavior are concerned. Some might argue that there is no easy leeway on the part of educators to engage comprehensive sex education in schools, save for compromising religious ideals that form an important part of any given society. Such groups of people even compare premarital sex to smoking, whereby there is no such thing as ‘safe smoking', hence their advocacy for ‘abstinence' education. Consequently, they argue that ignorance on the part of youngsters engaging in sex is generally due to disregard of moral values as opposed to lack of scientific knowledge about the same.
This paper supports the placement of emphasis on ‘abstinence' education but still recognizes the significance of an all-round approach to sex education in schools. This is in view that school-going teenagers normally end up practicing unsafe sex practices despite numerous measures by government and community social institutions offering them information regarding superlative safe sex practices. This ideology brings about realization of the fact that the education syste...