POLL | Are grade 4 pupils ready to learn about sex and masturbation?
Teachers are infuriated about a new school curriculum which requires them to educate pupils as young as in grade 4 about sex and masturbation as part of the new life-orientation curriculum.
Teachers will need to explain vaginal, oral and anal sex as well as teach kids about masturbation.
According to the City Press report this new syllabus was leaked to the media last week, and states that the programme will be implemented for pupils between grades 4 and 12.
The controversial curriculum includes case studies about adults assaulting children and deals with the dangers of sexting - sending, receiving or forwarding sexually explicit messages and photographs.
But according to IOL, Johan Kruger, the operational director of SA Teachers' Union (SAOU), said the implementation of curriculum is inappropriate for grade 4 kids and teachers will not be comfortable teaching the curriculum.
Kruger said children are not ready for such "explicit information".
"This is totally unacceptable. We have actually indicated to our members that if they are uncomfortable to teach this curriculum they can leave it out, and if there is action taken against them we will support them.
"The information is not applicable for children in those grades and ages."
Earlier this year, Sunday Times reported that basic education minister Angie Motshekga hired celebrity sex therapist Dr Marlene Wasserman to help develop the "cutting-edge" life-orientation curriculum.
"It is a very progressive and integrative curriculum, which means that sexuality, although a separate subject, is threaded in with other subjects and vice versa.
"My contribution was creating a cutting-edge curriculum based on current comprehensive sexuality education curricula globally, and together with the team adapting it for South African learners.
"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," said Wasserman.