Should sex education be a school subject?

Meanwhile, during this year, in the January 26th period of September, 7,176 babies were born, with 26 of them from non - adult mothers.

Before long, sociologists and psychologists have raised the issue of sexual education as subjects to be included in schools. But, so far, Government and the Ministry of Education have not included this subject. One reason has been that sexual education is taught in some of the current subjects.

Dea (the full name for REL) is a high school student and says that as far as education is concerned, or information from the family about sexual education, they are below zero.

I may say that I have been informed of zero percent. But it's the Internet, and today you can investigate everything and I'm pretty much informed about sexual education, if I've had interest in something”

I think that from elementary school the subject of sexual education should begin to apply to the education system. This is due to the lack of knowledge of this field and many minors may contract sexually transmitted diseases, but there are also cases of pregnancies”, says Dea.

In an effort to help young people with information about sexual education, three students from the Faculty of Psychologicality at Pristina University have come together and have developed an app called “Shnet”. This app, made in cooperation with U NICEF, and can be downloaded for free, while it is the first of its kind in Kosovo.

One of the founders, Tuena Govori, tells Radio Free Europe that they have voluntarily delivered lectures in Kosovo's high schools, and on the basis of findings, have come to the conclusion that young people have little knowledge of sexual education.

It points out that especially for sexually transmitted diseases, young people have a lot of confusion because of lack of information.

“As the application is needed, we have noted during the presentation in Kosovo high schools, where students have very little knowledge of sexual education. I think it's very necessary to introduce courses on these subjects in schools. For example, there is little discussion on these subjects in Biology. Project is financed by U NICEF and all information (on the app) have been revised by health professionals, such as gynecologists, psychologists and others”, Govori points out.

On the other hand, Mimoza Sahin, a psychologist, says that the lack of information about sexual education has increased the cases of unwanted teen pregnancies, mainly high school students.

The introduction of sex education in schools is a must for children today, for life training. School has been spoken superficially. The age of children entering sexual relations is about 13 years old, and it is naive if these are not previously educated for such a thing”, Sahin says.

One of the effects of early pregnancies, she says, has been observed to be the abandoning of children from mothers, since they are very young.

So, I think the sexual education subject would be a necessity”, Sahin estimates.

Meanwhile, Fehmi Krasniqi, co-ordinator for natural science at the Ministry of Science and Technology, at the same time the designer of the results of sexual education, has said the introduction of sex education in schools is necessary. According to him, the teachers are already being trained for the subject.

This started as an integrated subject in three subjects, in Biology, Civil Education and Physical Education. But, could it enter as a particular subject, political decision by the Government remains to be made. I think it's one of the most necessary subjects”, Krasniqi said, long ago for Radio Free Europe.

Currently, learning about sexual education, body and gender is available in current textbooks, but they are scattered in different subjects.