Source: Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa
Essential content is missing from the Years 11-13 Health and Physical Education Curriculum, Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa says, and it’s young people who are going to fall through this knowledge gap.
“The final Year 11-13 curriculum, released last week, has scaled back sexuality education-related content even more than the earlier draft,” Sexual Wellbeing Health Promotion Specialist Belinda Narayanan says. “The young people for whom this curriculum is intended, are starting to develop more intense personal relationships, may be already having sex or are grappling with issues of identity.
“Offering these young people a curriculum which separates health into strands remains problematic. We need young people to understand health holistically – to know that the physical, mental and social aspects of health are deeply intertwined.”
Ms Narayanan says Sexual Wellbeing has been working with schools and young people for decades and had long advocated for the curriculum to be extended into Years 11, 12 and 13. However, the new curriculum removes the subtopic sexual and reproductive health all together and only includes knowledge on what is described as “international sexual and reproductive health issues.”
“We had high hopes that a Years 11-13 curriculum would be relevant to young people as they developed different relationships. Instead, we’re left asking where they are going to get their sexual and reproductive health information from – given how light this content is in the Years 1-10 curriculum.”
A Sexual Wellbeing survey of more than 1000 young people aged 16 to 20 was taken in late 2024, mostly because young people’s voices were missing from conversations about what they needed from relationships and sexuality education.
The survey responses were clear that they wanted relationships and sexuality education better timed to correspond to their needs around sexual activity and relationships.
Ms Narayanan says the new curriculum, which is due to be implemented progressively from 2028, scratches the surface of building knowledge and critical thinking around online sexual content. Although the final curriculum refers to the risks and harms related to pornography, it does not adequality recognise the mainstreaming of pornography in social media and online, which is where many young people now get their information about sex from.
The curriculum review has failed to take into account the feedback and content suggestions from organisations like ours who have decades-long expertise in sexuality and relationships education, specifically around addressing the New Zealand-specific context of this subject.
“As young people move into the later years of secondary school and toward adulthood, their independence is increasing. They need to be provided with essential skills to protect their sexual and reproductive health. Sadly however, there is concrete information missing from each of the three strands – indeed the needs of young people themselves are missing.”
Despite the limited SRH content in the new curriculum, Sexual Wellbeing intends to continue to support schools to meet the needs of akonga (or young people) by providing curriculum-aligned resources that reflect best practice and build skills, knowledge and critical thinking in this learning area.