Condoms for kids: is it the best we can do?

THE Department of Basic Education’s new policy on HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis is likely to alarm most South Africans — even those without school-going children.

For while the aims of the proposals are laudatory — helping eradicate stigma attached to pupils and teachers who have HIV/Aids and TB, particularly — the prevention measures will certainly raise concern, even outrage.

Among a range of proposals that seek to enhance the protection of children and teachers, the most shocking one is the provision of condoms to children as young as nine or 10. Similarly, the fact that teachers will also be equipped with condoms is likely to increase well-founded fears that adults will continue preying on their charges with impunity.

The new proposals, made available for public comment this week, make much of the right of everyone within South Africa’s education system to make “informed decisions about their personal health and safety”. An informed 10-year-old?

Along with the distribution of condoms, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga promises to make age-appropriate sex education mandatory.

But educational experts and groups working with vulnerable children, along with parents, must surely find the sweeping introduction of contraceptives in schools somewhat alarming.

It is well established that a shamefully high number of teachers have abdicated responsibility towards pupils — to the extent of encouraging sexual relations in return for good marks.

Similarly, the number of pregnancies among primary school pupils is cause for alarm.

Government statistics show that 717 primary and 20 116 high school pupils fell pregnant in 2013-14. One of these was a 13-year-old, in Grade 5.

In response to the figures, a spokesman for education in the Eastern Cape — a province hardhit by schoolgirl pregnancy — told the Herald newspaper that, in spite of life orientation skills being taught, pregnancies remained a problem.

“We have clearly been having a disjointed approach and need to engage with, and ultimately make a collaborative effort, between the community, pupils and the department.

“We are planning to rope in churches and traditional leaders to find a lasting solution.”

The proposals appear to be a desperate attempt at managing a disturbing problem and a worrying lack of values within our society.

Instead of a holistic approach to repairing what is clearly a society in distress, we are now resorting to dishing out condoms like candy.