Implementation of CSE under review: DepEd

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THE Department of Education yesterday said that its implementation of the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) is under review due to “confusion” on the wording in Department Order (DO) No. 31 series of 2018.

The DepEd said the review aims to establish a common understanding of the key concepts of CSE.

This developed as Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian suggested that the implementation of CSE be temporarily suspended while the kinks have not been ironed out.

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Presiding during the Committee on Basic Education hearing on Senate Resolution No. 13, which sought an inquiry on the rising number of adolescent pregnancy and HIV among the youth, Gatchalian said DepEd’s DO 31 has inconsistencies. Under this, CSE is mandated to be integrated into all levels of the school curriculum when the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health (RPRH) Law provides that it is only required for adolescents (aged 10 to 19).

He said CSE was “expanded all the way to kindergarten,” which runs counter to the intention of those who crafted the RPRH Law.

“If you are saying that there is confusion, then how do we expect our teachers to teach CSE with clarity on the ground?” Gatchalian said.

DepEd Undersecretary for legal and legislative affairs Filemon Ray Javier said that DO No. 31 is under review and revisions will be made “if necessary” for the proper implementation of CSE, even as he said that sexuality education must be taught at the ages of 10 to 19 years old as what was provided under the RPRH Law.

“When you look at the curriculum itself, there are details on what should be taught per grade level. And if we will look at the details of the curriculum, the sexual education proper will begin at the age of 10 and will end at age 19. Even though, admittedly the wording of DO 31 at the current state is confusing, there are details provided for by the curriculum,” Javier said.

Gatchalian said sensitive topics like CSE should have “no room for confusion.”

Gatchalian also asked the DepEd if the teachers have undergone training on culturally sensitive matters and the type of materials they will use in the classrooms since educators were apparently given the leeway on what to use as reference materials, as the DepEd stated earlier, identified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) technical guide.

He said that under UNESCO’s Key Stage 1 guidelines, children aged five to six should be taught of the need for “humans to enjoy their bodies (as well as) being close to others throughout their life.”

Datukan said the UNESCO guidelines only provide the framework for the implementation of the CSE and assured that DepEd “did not adopt it in its entirety.”

“We used it as a basis for creating or crafting our own curriculum for CSE that is age-appropriate, that is developmentally-appropriate, and that’s culturally sensitive, which also covers religious beliefs and other orientations,” Datukan said.

Health Undersecretary Albert Francis Domingo said there is an apparent lack of “information, access to commodities, and enforcement” which contributes largely to the large number of adolescent pregnancies and new cases of HIV infections among the youth.

Citing data from the Department of Health, Domingo said in 2020, infants born to mothers aged 15 to 19 were tallied at 24 per 100,000 live births or 121,896; in 2021, it was 22 per 100,000 live births or 112,900; in 2022, 24 per 100,000 live births or 123,362; and increased to 25 per 100,000 live births or 132,157.

He said young women are not physically and mentally prepared to bear children since their bodies and hormonal makeup are not yet fully developed, which often leads to physical problems for the infant, and at times, even death to the mother.

Domingo said the maternal mortality rate in 2019 was 87 per 100,000 but spiked to 182 per 100,000 in 2021 and decreased to 138 per 100,000 in 2022.

He said the target was at least 50 per 100,000.

On HIV cases, Domingo said the latest data showed that 47 percent of new infections were from the young key population aged 15 to 24, adding that most of them started to engage in sexual activities as young as 16.

He said the average age who started to use condoms was at 17.

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“Kailangan natin tingnan at baka ‘yung impormasyon or ‘yung commodity, yung condom mismo ay hindi nakarating sa kanila nung panahon na sila mismo ay nagsimula na sa pakikipagtalik based on our data (Let us try to look because maybe the information [on the use of condoms] or the commodity itself has not reached them during the time that they themselves started to have sexual activities based on our data,” Domingo told the committee.

He said it is for this reason that Senate Bill No. 1979 or the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy Act should be thoroughly discussed.

“Because the very same act which we hold so dear and so sacred in our culture has to be also guided by scientific information and means to carry it out in a healthy possible way,” Domingo said.

DepEd assistant secretary Dexter Galban said the department has trained around 400,000 of the more than 800,000 public school teachers nationwide on CSE, “specifically the more sensitive and more complex aspects of CSE that is separate from their inset or their in-service training.”

Galban admitted, however, that the implementation of DO 31 was initially met with challenges among teachers “when it comes to its content.”

“But it was supplemented by conducting teacher training. It was included as part of the in-service training which covers all teachers as part of their mandatory annual training. But apart from that, we also pushed for the specialized training of CSE-oriented teachers…Our goal is to hopefully eventually get all teachers accustomed to knowing how to effectively handle CSE as a topic for our learners,” he said.

Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros asked if DepEd included teaching children aged 0 to 4 years old about childhood masturbation and other forms of sexual activities, to which Datukan said, “There’s nowhere in our curriculum that teaches these things to learners between 0 to 4.

“Hindi po covered din natin’ yan kasi ang mga learners po natin nag-i-start at 5 years old sa DepEd (Children aged 0 to 4 are not covered since DepEd learners start at the age of 5). And like we said, all of the competencies that we have under this comprehensive sexuality education are mapped with existing learning competencies already in the curriculum,” Datukan added.

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