Costa Rica News – The Minister of Public Education (MEP) of Costa Rica has stated that they are working on making the program of Sexual Comprehension more effective before encouraging professors to teach it to students of tenth and eleventh grade in the country.
Over the last eight years, the controversial lessons have been implemented as part of the learning curriculum only in the public and private sector of those schools that teach students of seventh, eight or ninth grade. The new goal is to expand the lessons to those of the tenth and eleventh grade.
Part of the required material in the curriculum enforced by MEP teaches students about the learning process in the classroom, teaching mediation activities and exchange of experiences between teachers and students from other institutions.
Another action being taken by MEP is identifying other complex controversial topics that should be part of the teaching agenda. By acknowledging these topics the minister of education can work on finding and developing the teaching material to educate about these topics.
The academic vice minister of MEP, Dyalah Calderón indicated that although there are changes that will be made to the program over time, there is satisfaction with the results of the current teaching material on the subject of sexual comprehension. Calderon expressed that college directors have taken advantage of the curriculum to have classes where they can talk about this topic and elaborate on specific sub-areas the students find interesting.
This past Monday MEP organized the international forum for the effectiveness of sexual comprehension. Three international specialists an over two hundred professors and students from different colleges of the country attended the event. The professionals talked about experiences with the goal of helping professors and students reflect and analyze on decisions regarding the subject.
Costa Rica has one of the largest teen-pregnancies numbers in the world. MEP is working on furthering young people’s knowledge on sexuality by exposing students to the material continually throughout their education. The country is known as a pioneer when it comes to exploring and addressing new controversial educational material, and they a finally moving forward with subject of sexual comprehension education.
By Brenda Sotelo
