Sex education in schools
The Times's front page story today says sex education will be made compulsory for all schoolchildren, ending parents right to withdraw their children from sex education lessons after the age of 14.
The Times says "The Government is pressing ahead despite its own research, which shows that the move is heavily opposed, with 79 per cent of the population backing the right of parents to exempt their children." However, on PM yesterday Ed Balls was claiming the same research showed that 70% of parents thought that parents thought the opt out should only be up to a certain age - suggesting a large majority in support of the policy. Who's right?
The polling was run by Populus, and the actual figures are here. People were asked to pick the option that came closest to their view, chosing from either a right to withdraw their children whatever their age, no right to withdraw their children at all, or the right to withdraw them up to the ages of 11, 14 or 16.
30% of parents thought that they should be able to withdraw their children from sex education whatever their age. 20% thought there should be no right to withdraw children from sex education at all. In between 33% of parents thought that parents should be able to withdraw children up to the age of 11, 9% up to the age of 14 and 7% up to the age of 16.
So going back to the claims of the Times and Ed Balls, they are both technically correct. However, while 79% of parents do indeed support being able to exempt their children from sex education, the majority of these only support being able to do so up until a certain age. 70% of parents do indeed either support limiting the right to withdraw children up to a certain age, or don't support any exemptions at all.
What the government have actually proposed is ending the right of parents to withdraw their children from sex education when they reach the age of 15, so 62% of parents would have supported an even further reduction, 37% said they would prefer a higher age limit or no reduction in the right at all. In that sense, the government isn't "pressing ahead despite its own research, which shows that the move is heavily opposed" - its research definitely shows a large minority oppose the reduction, but a majority are in favour, or would be in favour of going even further.
