ACCRA, Ghana (CNS) — Catholic teachers in Ghana have joined the bishops’ conference and Muslim organizations in urging the government to withdraw a sex education program from the national school curriculum.
The “unlimited scope and span” of the comprehensive program, launched this year by the government and UNESCO, “would create room for anything to be introduced … by interested groups or individuals,” the association of Catholic teachers in Ghana said in an Oct. 14 statement at the end of its national meeting in Torve.
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The topics in the program, scheduled to be taught starting 2020 in all public schools to children 5 years and older, are unsuitable for young children and do not conform to Ghanaian culture, the teachers said.
Funded by Sweden and Ireland, the comprehensive sex education project aims to improve sexual and reproductive health, gender and education outcomes for young people in sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNESCO’s website.
Heads of schools should be “vigilant about the activities of nongovernmental organizations that may be used to execute this agenda,” the teachers’ statement said. If the budgetary allocation for the program was approved by parliament, then parliament must answer to the people of Ghana, it said.
The teachers called on Ghana’s education minister to apologize to the bishops and others who had expressed concerns about the program.
Elementary and middle school has been free and compulsory in the West African country since 1995, and rollout of tuition-free high school began in 2017.
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