The Ghana Education Service has strongly debunked claims that the Comprehensive Sexuality Education curriculum is a subtle attempt to indoctrinate pupils on homosexuality.
A statement signed by the Head of the Public Affairs Unit of the Ghana Education Service, Cassandra Twum Ampofo, stated that the new Standard Based Curriculum being implemented has nothing to do with Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual and Transgender issues, masturbation or explicit display/labelling of intimate body parts.
The statement comes after massive public uproar against the sex education initiative with some Ghanaians calling on the education ministry to withdraw it.
Legal Practitioner, Moses Foh Amoaning has been at the forefront describing the new curriculum as a deliberate attempt to teach children about LGBT issues.
Some other members of the Clergy have also described the new curriculum as satanic, calling on the GES to withdraw it as soon as possible.
But the Concerned Teachers Association of Ghana says teachers in the country are not aware of the controversial curriculum which is starting next academic year.
According to them, claims by the Ghana Education Service that teachers have been briefed about the curriculum are untrue.
However, according to the GES, In all the training programmes on the curriculum from simulation through master training to the training of the 152.000 KG-P6 teachers, there was no mention of any of the issues referred to above.
The GES added that the new curriculum does not seek to to throw out the advocacy for sexual abstinence, but rather seeks to reinforce it. The goal of CSE is to equip school children with age and cultural appropriate information to explore and nurture positive values and attitudes towards their sexual and reproductive health and to develop self -esteem, respect for human rights and gender equality.
Below is the full statement
GES RESPONSE ON COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION
The attention of Management of the Ghana Education Service has been drown to discussions on various media platforms over allegations that the GES is introducing explicit sexual information to children as young as age four under the guise of Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE).
The GES is surprised at the wild speculations and claims and wishes to clarify as follows:
- The new Standard Based Curriculum being implemented has nothing to do with LGBT issues, masturbation or explicit display/labelling of intimate body parts.
- In all the training programmes on the curriculum from simulation through master training to the training of the 152.000 KG-P6 teachers, there was no mention of any of the issues referred to above.
- The CSE does not seek to throw out the advocacy for sexual abstinence, but rather seeks to reinforce it. The goal of CSE is to equip school children with age and cultural appropriate information to explore and nurture positive values and attitudes towards their sexual and reproductive health and to develop self -esteem, respect for human rights and gender equality. It further seeks to help students to make informed decisions about their health, with emphasis on Ghanaian cultural values and norms.
- Member states of the United Nations are mandated to toll out CSE in accordance with their cultural norms and values. 11 is therefore wrong to insist that CSE as practiced in Europe or North America has the same structures and content as is being rolled out in Ghana.
- Indeed on the 2nd of April 2019, the Ghana Education Service wrote to the Acting Executive Secretary of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment to request the insertion of the phrase -within the acceptable cultural values and norms of the Ghanaian Society’. In the third objective of Page 3 of the CSE guidelines in circulation.
The insertion has not been made yet and therefore GES has not finally approved the CSE guidelines being discussed on various media platforms.
The GES wishes to assure the general public that no special sessions have been organized or will ever be organized by the GES to train students as advocates for sexual rights, let alone LGBT rights which are culturally, socially, legally, morally and religiously alien to Ghana.
The GES is a state Agency and will not under any circumstance implement any programme which goes contrarily to the legal, cultural norms, values and beliefs of the Ghanaian people.