A quarter of kids not taught about pregnancy at school

Experts have called for kids to learn more about sex at school, with research showing a quarter aren’t taught about pregnancy.

Students Listening To Female Teacher In Classroom

“Alarming” new research shows sex education falls short in Aussie schools, with young people not learning basics such as consent or even how pregnancy works.

Online sexual education provider Normal surveyed 1000 Australians of all ages over three months, and found schools did not teach at least half those currently aged under 24, particularly boys, about consent, contraception or pregnancy.

Certified sex educator Georgia Grace said the amount of people who had not received useful sexual advice at school was “incredibly alarming”.

Ms Grace said the federal government’s “cringe-worthy” educational milkshake consent video that was last week scrapped after widespread criticism underscored the need for an educational overhaul.

“Schools are failing in the way that they teach about consent and contraception because young people don’t have the opportunity to receive thorough, useful age appropriate sex education.”

“It needs to be up-to-date, useful, and in the best case scenario taught by trained professionals.”

A quarter of teens go through school without learning about pregnancy. Picture: iStock

With 25 per cent of girls and almost half of boys not taught about base-level processes like pregnancy, Ms Grace said: “Limited sex education has long lasting and negative impacts on people needing support with sexual shame, sexual coercion and assault.”

The survey found 63 per cent of males reported not being taught how to discuss consent with their sexual partner.

Just 43 per cent of men and almost half of women received contraceptive advice.

Prof Christopher Fisher from La Trobe University’s Australian Research Centre for Sex Health and Society said young people would better engage with overt and age-appropriate conversations about consent, rather than euphemisms.

“If you’re using vague language, when they need to be having a consent conversation with a potential partner they’re not going to recognise that situation,” Prof Fisher said.

“They don’t want to sugar-coat it, they want to know what’s real.”

There are calls for all students to be taught about consent and respectful relationships at school. Picture

Former Richmond-based medical student Emily Casey, 26, said the sex education she and her relatives received at both public and private schools in Melbourne’s inner suburbs was “so minimal”.

“It’s really apparent that I got literally nothing and it was sort of a miracle if they weren’t pregnant by the time they were 16 or 18.

“I remember very vividly in primary school we were taught about menstruation and that was pretty much it.

Ms Casey said she has seen real world consequences of not receiving effective sex education in patients with STIs she worked with on placement.

“I saw a lot of different demographics of patients in a lot of different areas and it’s so incredibly clear that no one has really received the proper sex education.”

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