‘College sex consent classes are needed’
‘Troubling’ report findings spur minister into action
MINISTER of State for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor has said sexual consent classes in all Irish colleges should be made compulsory.
She was reacting to what she called ‘troubling’ findings that show as many as 70% of female students admitted they had experienced a form of ‘sexual hostility’ or ‘crude gender harassment’ in college.
Expressing her shock at the National University of Ireland Galway report, Ms O’Connor said it ‘is time’ to examine how workshops on consent could be made compulsory in Irish universities and institutes of technology.
The survey of 3,500 students by NUIG researchers also found that 71% of women and 63% of men ‘expressed dissatisfaction with the sexual education they received in school’. When asked if, off the back of this report, she thought it is now time to examine Data: Mary Mitchell O’Connor introducing compulsory consent classes for students in their first year of third-level education, Ms Mitchell O’Connor described it as a ‘wake-up call’.
While she acknowledged some programmes were being run by individual colleges – such as Trinity – the former school principal said it’s now her job to ‘pull the whole lot together, join the dots’.
‘I do actually think it is time [for compulsory consent classes],’ she said. ‘This report is really new, we are hearing stuff that we haven’t heard before, we are hearing about difficulties that are in our third-level institutions. And I, as a minister, want to make sure that our institutions are a safe place to study.’
As part of the report, the effectiveness of SMART Consent Workshops – held in four institutions last year – was examined.
The minister said the report on this previously unexplored territory – titled ‘Are Consent Workshops Sustainable and Feasible in Third Level Institutions? Evidence from Implementing and Extending the SMART Consent Workshop’ – is a ‘baseline’ for her. ‘It is up to me now to look at what we can do,’ she said.
‘But these workshops – and I have looked at the workshop content – they also have interac- tive films going with these workshops and we’ll be seeing what is best practice.’
She said of the report: ‘It was surprising, and it was troubling to read it and I want all of our students to flourish in their thirdlevel institutions. And it’s impossible to flourish and reach your potential if this is what is going on in the background. So I think it is a wake-up call to all of us – be it the institutions, be it to me as a minister, and then especially to parents. I want parents also to have a duty here, to inform their offspring about consent.’
Earlier this year, Education Minister Richard Bruton announced a major review of the sex education programme for schools, and consent is set to be prioritised in this overhaul.
The Relationships and Sexuality Education course in secondary schools is almost two decades old. Mr Bruton has tasked the National Council on Curriculum and Assessment with ensuring RSE classes are ‘fit for purpose’ and meet ‘the needs of young people today’.
‘It is a wake-up call to all of us’