The life orientation curriculum is hooking up with the 21st century.
From next year, textbooks for pupils in grades 4 to 12 will reflect a “cutting edge” curriculum that treats masturbation, sexual consent, gender nonconformity and single-parent families as mainstream.
Sex therapist Dr Marlene Wasserman (Dr Eve), one of 80 experts who have overhauled the curriculum, said: “Masturbation is normalised and it is threaded through [the curriculum] from grade 4. It begins with self-pride, self-image, body diversity, genital differences, genital changes and touching oneself for pleasure.”
While grade 4 pupils would learn about consent in friendships, older pupils would learn about sexual consent.
“The curriculum was geared for the 2020 South African learner: who is he, she, they? A fluid, gender nonconforming child raised in a family of a mom and an absent dad,” Wasserman said.
Hayley Walker, chair of Protective Behaviours Southern Africa, said the textbooks were long overdue because “too much many life skills have been left to chance”.
Read the full story in the Sunday Times.
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