Protest against introducing the new Comprehensive Sex Education Curriculum into South African Schools in 2020.
The Committee Members
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Basic Education
Honourable Members,
In our democracy and as per the Constitution, one of Parliament’s roles is to oversee the actions of the Executive and the exercise of its authority in implementing national policy and hold it to account where necessary. Currently, there is an uproar across the land at the perceived abuse of power and authority by the Department of Basic Education in preparing to roll out and impose objectionable “Comprehensive Sex Education” (with little or no prior consultation with parents and other important stakeholders) in clear violation of the will of the vast majority of parents and teachers.
We are profoundly upset by this and demand that you, Honourable Members, make our outrage known to the Minister so that the necessary steps may be taken, even by Parliament, to demand the scrapping or changing of the curriculum, it being gravely offensive to the moral sensitivities and well-being of most of our country’s people – especially our children in whom the future of our country is vested.
Mention of “Comprehensive Sex Education” (CSE) always raises a red flag – especially where there has been a glaring lack of consultation and transparency! This is because it generally conjures up the notion of “value-free, non-religious, premature and inappropriate” education in matters best left to parents to pursue in the proper environment, with love, discretion and due attention to age and the “need to know”! This a very emotive issue in which parental rights are paramount!
There is the well-known anecdote related by a prominent South African Educationist who, in the discussion around educational issues, noted that a particular school with the best marks in our country in Life Orientation skills….. also had the highest teenage pregnancy stats! That speaks volumes – and relates to an era before the envisaged addition of “Comprehensive Sex Education” (CSE) to the curriculum! If the observation of international trends in CSE is anything to go by, “comprehensive” hides a multitude of “other” information which generally speaking, is simply one more tool in the anti-family battering ram – more geared to changing perceptions than to educating…
CSE, by its very nature, constantly pushes the limits, evolving with “the times” – and the “times” (fruit of the Sexual Revolution) have certainly changed over the last decades! This often manifests in tempering convictions; sowing doubts where there were certainties; normalising the abnormal; shifting mind-sets so that what may formerly have been “wrong” is now, if not “right” at least “not so bad…” Even now, in many countries, a CSE “must” is education in “gender fluidity”! We want to know why CSE is now being foisted on our country? There is no obligation to adopt this path and it has certainly not been mandated nor sought by South African parents!
Failure to check and resist this advance will have incalculable consequences for our society!
It is absolutely absurd that children should be force-fed some of the material that is envisaged for introduction in 2020, and even more so why an African country (South Africa), where “continent-wide” there is generally strong pro-family sentiment, should be pushed along the same paths which have contributed to societal decay in Europe, America, and the “West” in general. Such programmes are often also purely ideologically-driven, certainly with ulterior motives at play, and suspect role-players in the background. It is a common practice to force African countries to adopt immoral policies (e.g. abortion and same-sex “marriage”) in exchange for vast monetary inflows! Are we for sale? Are our children for sale?
We are already living in a hyper-sexualized culture where the values of purity and modesty are so desperately lacking. Yet so much effort is concentrated on buying into the modern narrative of “education in sexuality,” with results which are inevitably ruinous, resulting in premature “sexualisation”!
Family Action South Africa, an organisation dedicated to the defence and nurturing of the family institution as the fundamental pillar of society objects to the surreptitious and underhand way in which CSE suddenly “arrived,” and we respectfully request that the programme be scrapped and all stakeholders be engaged in a return to the drawing board!
In a recent Press Release, Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA) made the following point, which we make our own:
“Having now seen the actual content, parents and teachers have every reason to be very concerned – particularly as some of the content to which children will be exposed, and teachers will be expected to teach, is nothing less than ‘soft porn’,” says Michael Swain, Executive Director of Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA). “Of all subjects taught in schools, CSE is the most likely to make a lasting impact on children since they are at a highly impressionable age and often unable to process the information that they are given. For this reason, the rights of parents to raise their children according to their own values and beliefs must be therefore respected. They must be consulted and shown the materials to which their children will be exposed and, if this conflicts with the values they hold, they must have the right to pull their child/ren from the class.”
May Almighty God guide you in the important role you have as “watchdogs” of national educational policy and inspire you to heed the outrage of countless parents and educators in taking the requisite steps to scrap this unnecessary addition to the existing curriculum!
Yours sincerely
Bernard Tuffin
Family Action South Africa