Teaching Sexual Education in Schools in Panama

The absence of Sexual Education in the schools of Panama is one of the major cause that more and more young girls to become pregnant before the age of twenty-four.

Abstract

• Fecha de recepción, febrero 2019
• Fecha de aprobación, marzo 2019
• Pages: 6

This result can be attributed to many reasons, such as messages given through social media, advertisements, and songs that show girls in scanty clothing and make this seem likely to be the road to popularity to these young girls. In addition to this, parents in general spend very little time with their children and communicate with them even less. Basically, this leaves children to grow and fend for themselves at a very young age. It then forces these same youths to make decisions about issues they themselves do not fully comprehend the consequences. The result in consequence is promiscuous behavior with no limits by society. Institutions like the church also do not want to get involved because having sexual relations before marriage is forbidden. When there are no controls in a community because of scarcity of supervision, the schools should take the lead in educating the population so as to avoid the social problems attached to early pregnancies. Unfortunately, this topic is tabooed in many communities and it has received great resistance from parents and churches who have protested against it being taught in classrooms. By not teaching Sexual Education, the cycle of early pregnancies continues. This study surveyed a random group of teachers in the Republic of Panama about their point of views on teaching Sexual Education in the classroom.   For the purposes of this research paper, we focus on the effect of Sexual Education in a school setting, and the problem with incorporating information related to sexuality in a classroom.