04/12/2023
Catholic Education Tasmania head takes issue with mandatory consent education
By Loretta Lohberger
Posted 5h ago5 hours ago
An exterior view of an old building.
Catholic Education Tasmania says it "reserves the right to question and challenge any educational prescriptions that would impose such an anti-family and secular ideology on our schools, students and families".(ABC News: Simon Farrell)
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In short: The head of Catholic Education Tasmania says s*xual consent education as outlined in the national curriculum contains amoral information.
Schools have started implementing the national curriculum, which includes a strengthening of consent education.
What's next? Non-government schools have some discretion when it comes to implementing the curriculum, and Catholic Education Tasmania is engaging Catholic educators to develop its respectful relationships programs.
The head of Catholic education in Tasmania has criticised consent education as stipulated in the national curriculum, saying it includes "highly sensitive, amoral and potentially harmful information".
The new version of the Australian curriculum included an update to the health and physical education learning area.
A spokesperson for the federal education department said it aimed "to strengthen and lift expectations for the delivery of consent and respectful relationships education from Foundation to Year 10 in age-appropriate ways".
The updated curriculum, which is for government and non-government schools, is being implemented by states and territories according to their own timelines.
Schools, however, do have some flexibility when it comes to teaching the curriculum.
"In many cases, decisions are made by individual schools which ensures that school leaders, teachers and communities can tailor education programs and resources to suit students' specific needs and their school's context," the spokesperson said.
Gerard Gaskin wears a suit and a tie and stands in front of a Catholic Education banner smiling
In a recently published article on the Archdiocese of Hobart's website, Gerard Gaskin took issue with mandatory consent education programs.
"Consent is proposed as the only standard we should use to judge whether a s*xual act is right or wrong, legal or illegal," Dr Gaskin wrote.
"In Catholic morality, consent is necessary, but not sufficient, to make the s*xual act right or wrong. It is the long-held teaching of Christ that s*xual activity is only legitimately expressed within the loving relationship between husband and wife."
Sexual assault support services:
Sexual Assault Support Service (Tasmania): 1800 697 877
1800 Respect national helpline: 1800 737 732
Sexual Assault Counselling Australia: 1800 211 028
Bravehearts (support for child s*xual abuse survivors): 1800 272 831
Other helplines:
Lifeline (24-hour crisis line): 131 114
Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636
Tasmania's Victims of Crime Service: 1300 300 238
CLAN Care Leavers Australia Network 1800 008 774
Dr Gaskin wrote that "age appropriate or not … according to Federal curriculum requirements, children are to be taught that any form of s*xual activity is OK provided both persons give consent".
"Note too, the ACARA [the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority] also says that consent education must be taught explicitly.
"It is difficult to imagine how such complex and bewildering s*xual information could possibly be taught to little children in any way that could ever be considered as age appropriate."
Dr Gaskin said the "s*xual and moral formation" of a child was the "exclusive right of parents".
"Yet, the federal and state governments appear to have decided that such highly sensitive, amoral and potentially harmful information must now be provided by teachers and that it must start in the first years of schooling.
"This places an unreasonable and unacceptable demand on our teachers.
"Needless to say, Catholic Education Tasmania reserves the right to question and challenge any educational prescriptions that would impose such an anti-family and secular ideology on our schools, students and families."
Dr Gaskin said Tasmanian Catholic schools had engaged Catholic educators Jonathan and Karen Doyle "to support our teachers with appropriate and faithful Catholic resources to promote respectful relationships and to promote the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of marriage".
A 'human rights issue'
Founder of Teach Us Consent, Chanel Contos, said consent education should not be made a political or religious issue, and that teaching respectful relationships needed a whole-of-community approach.
"Sexual relationships can and do occur outside of marriage. Abstinence is a choice, s*xual assault is not," Ms Contos said.
"Marital r**e is also illegal in Australia.
"Teaching consent education to the whole of Australia would only increase an individual's ability to only have s*x within marriage if that is their desire.
"Whilst I do not personally agree with teaching abstinence, consent education can always be taught in conjunction with religious values.
"This shouldn't be made a political or religious issue, it's a human rights issue."
Founder of Teach Us Consent chanel contos speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra on wednesday november 1
In February 2021, Ms Contos polled her Instagram followers and asked if they or someone close to them had been s*xually assaulted by someone when they were at school.
After more than 200 people responded with "yes" in just 24 hours, Ms Contos launched an online petition calling for more holistic and earlier consent education in Australia.
The petition received 44,000 signatures.
Ms Contos said there needed to be a whole-of-community approach to respectful relationships.
"It shouldn't just be up to parents to shape respectful relationships," she said.
Our Watch chief executive Patty Kinnersly has said violence against women "does not occur out of the blue".
"It is driven by disrespect and gender inequality that exist in our society. A large body of international and Australian research shows that respectful relationships education from a young age can help change this," Ms Kinnersly wrote in an opinion piece published in the West Australian in September.
"But respectful relationships education must be age-appropriate.
"For example, in primary school, age-appropriate respectful relationships education may look at friendships and how to set boundaries or ask for permission before giving a hug or giving a high five."
States start rolling out new consent programs
The Queensland government announced in October last year that it had revamped the way respectful relationships and s*xual consent is taught in schools.
Tasmanian government schools have been teaching the latest version of the Australian curriculum since the start of this year.
An education department spokesperson said it would continue to provide professional learning opportunities to staff to support the delivery of respectful relationships and consent education.
"The Department for Education, Children and Young People is committed to embedding respectful relationships and consent education in Tasmanian government schools to build healthy and respectful relationships, and to address the attitudes and behaviours that lead to gender-based and family violence."
The spokesperson also said the department would continue to share respectful relationships and consent education resources with non-government schools, but said non-government schools had "discretion" when it came to implementing the curriculum.
