James Debono
The vast majority of Maltese people do not share the government’s timid approach to safe sex education in schools, a MaltaToday survey confirms.
The survey, in which 300 respondents were directly asked whether “education on the use of condoms and other contraceptives” should be provided in secondary schools, revealed an astounding 85% in favour of teaching students about the use of condoms.
Only 8% opposed it.
The survey comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding the lack of a national sexual health policy in Malta.
Secondary school children education on contraception is currently limited to Personal and Social Development, a lifeskills subject covering a wide array of topics, ranging from bullying and intercultural awareness to sexuality.
Education on contraception and responsible sexual behaviour starts at Form 3.
But in the absence of a national sexual health policy, sex education largely remains at the discretion of individual schools.
Over the past years the Malta Medical Students Association, which actively promotes sexual health awareness and condom use, was barred from taking their campaign to the Church’s secondary and post-secondary schools.
And a recent study conducted among Maltese schoolchildren aged 11 to 15 revealed that 64% of the respondents who admitted to having sex, also claimed to have never used a condom.
Parallel studies reveal that Malta currently enjoys the highest European incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis; as well as the highest rate of teenage girls dropping out of school on account of pregnancy.
Despite the gravity of the situation, a draft national health policy presented to the Health Ministry in July this year, was returned with practically every reference to the word “condom” deleted.