The Catholic Church's guidelines on Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE), to be circulated next week, will give priority to the role of parents in the matter. They will also emphasise the responsibility of school management boards to ensure parents are helped fulfil that role. Speaking to The Irish Times last night, Dr Thomas Flynn, chairman of the bishops' education commission, said the guidelines would be with school management boards by the end of next week.
Prepared by the bishop's catechetics commission, the guidelines have six main points. These highlight the bishops' view that:
(a) education in relationships is an essential aspect of the education of children from their earliest years;
(b) relationships and sexuality education (RSE) is primarily a matter for parents, and RSE should be carried out in schools only with the agreement and co-operation of parents;
(c) the Children of God series of religious education programmes (a package already being taught in Catholic primary schools) contains abundant material for education in relationships and sexuality;
(d) the RSE component of the Children of God series is designed so that it can be introduced gradually over a child's years in primary school, with what has been already covered being built upon each year. (The Children of God series is being revised at present and, when completed, will take into account these RSE guidlines);
(e) guidelines for the RSE programme will be circulated to the management boards before the beginning of the school year in September;
(f) it is the responsibility of management boards to ensure parents are assisted to fulfil their role in the RSE programme.
The guidelines will be in a pamphlet of five or six pages. According to today's Irish Catholic, they will also emphasise that the "dignity, privacy and modesty of a child must always be respected" and that "the pupil should never feel pressured to reveal or discuss private matters, nor to take part in forms of role play or drama about which he or she feels distaste or embarrassment."
The RSE programme will comprise six half-hour classes over the school year. Catholic Church sources indicate that much, if not most, of the programme is already being taught in the Children of God religious programme and that some parents appear to have chosen to make a major issue out of what is a comparatively minor one.
The sources said parents are often not quite as discriminating when it comes to what their children are allowed to see on television and video. It is also believed school management boards should conduct courses for parents to help them give relationships and sexuality instruction to their children.
