An Argument on The Reasons Why Sex Education Should Be Included in Kazakhstan Schools

Nowadays one of the most debatable topics in Kazakhstan is “Should sex education classes be introduced in school’s programs?”. One interesting fact is that majority of people ignores the sexual activity between girls and boys, and very unpleasant consequences such as early pregnancy, abortion and sexual disease. According to the Doctor Rolleri (2007), sexuality and HIV education programs have big influence among teenagers. “The evidence is strong that programs do not hasten or increase sexual behavior “ he explained , “but some programs delay or decrease sexual behaviors or increase condom or contraceptive use”. Furthermore, Sex education gives big knowledge about sex, pregnancy and protection for teenagers. Moreover, they will know how to avoid problems, for example, pregnancy. Sex Education should be included in Kazakhsatani schools because it will prevent many consequences, which may be caused by lack of knowledge. Sex education will be effective in Kazakhstan, because teenagers must be aware of this topic and be provided only with credible information.

The first reason why sex education should be in included in Kazakhstani schools is, because main part of parents always try to avoid this topic. The main point is that sex education will give the credible information, which parents do not provide at home. It is interesting fact that in Kazakhstan parents never talks about sex with their children, for them it is not good idea to discuss the “adult topic”. “I want to say that we have no culture in this sphere. In fact, we are embarrassed about talking about these things with children” (Romanovskaya, 2012). Some parents have an opinion that sex education at school lead bad effect of their children, this kind of thinking is the result of shameful talk with parents about that topic. Education about sexuality would help to provide elementary information, which is not , provided at home. For example, parents should explain about abortion, sexual disease, early pregnancy, and how to use contraceptives, but most often parents avoid discussing this topic with their kids. Neilson (n. d.) claims that children will get incorrect information about sex from non-credible sources unlikely if parents will not teach about it at home (as cited in Jonathan, 2010)[1] . Parents, whether married or single, are still the strongest influence on the choices their teens make about sex.* But, bad things will happen if parents do not take a big role in children’s life. In this case, sex education at school will help that kind of children to give necessary data about sex.

The second reason why sex education should be in included in Kazakhstani schools is because students will get correct information about sex. The main thing is that sex education lessons will give clear answers when student asks questions about their body changes. For example, they would understand more from a biological view such as hormones, sexuality development, gender roles, intimacy and body image. Additionally, with help of sex education, teens will know how to have sex safely with contraceptives. “Many young people engage in sexual risk behaviors that can result in unintended health outcomes” (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services,2017). Safe sex prevents sexual transmitted diseases and problems that are related to early pregnancies. For instance, children of young mothers experience more behavioral and neurocognitive disorders, low educational achievements and higher teenage pregnancy rate before reaching school ages. Also, teenage parenthood is often indicated by lower abilities for career achievement (Jordan et al., 2000). Moreover, being a young mother leads to psychological and emotional problems. Unfortunately for the past 10 years number of young mothers increased. Overall, sex education helps to avoid teenage pregnancy and high level of abortion. After analyzing information about sex education, students will think more about bad consequences of having unprotected sex and will start to pay attention to their study at school or college.

The third reason why sex education should be in included in Kazakhstani schools is because it will be effective in Kazakhstan. Parents and teachers should accept sex education seriously because of it is implications. As a result of high percentages of pregnancy and early marriage among teenagers under 18 in Kazakhstan, majority of parents will likely support that idea. The second reason is that students will be engaged in sex education lessons. Furthermore, they can understand the main idea of the lesson and catch the important information, which may be very useful in their lives. The third reason is that sex education has the opportunity to provide data for each student personally if they need individual support as for most students in Kazakhstan who are from religious families, sex is a taboo topic. Consequently, children might be afraid of discussing this topic. According to the statistic, over a thousand teenagers had made abortions in Kazakhstan last year. Also, in 2016 in Kazakhstan, more than a thousand women interrupted pregnancy, and 1418 were adolescents from 15-17 years of age ( Ivanovna, 2017). As mentioned before, Kazakhstani students can perceive sex education as a serious subject and rates of pregnancy and early marriage can decrease, because they would have good understanding about sexual intercourse.

Nevertheless, some critics argue that the reason sex education classes should be introduced in school programs in Kazakhstan is a bad idea. Studying sex education can attract students interest in sexual activity. "It will focus attention, they are already interested, but when the forbidden fruit is sweet, no one will give a guarantee that there will be no more immorality,” Director of the school Tatyana Bruesyevich, argues that it will lead many problems. In other words, as students gather more information in sex education, their interest in having sex will increase. For example, opponents state that after sex education lessons, teenagers will start searching the wrong information about sex from movies, radio and some. Some parents are afraid that sex education encourages their teens to have sex ( Dyk, 2015). For this reason, opponents argue that the teenagers do not need sex education at school and in must lead to bad consequence. Therefore, majority of teachers at school and parents believe that their children can live without sex education.

It may be true that students will tend to have more sex after being sex educated. However, these statements from teachers and parents are nothing more than just a fear, they are afraid of having a conversation with their kids about sex. In “Teens and Sex Education”, the author points out that teens who took sex education class became more interested in waiting until college to have sex. Moreover, before the class 84 percent of the teens wanted to wait, and after the class 87 percent were planning to wait. In other words, students will be interested in sex, but they will think about consequences too and decide to not being sexually active in order to avoid problems that they have learned from sex education[2] (“Teen Help.com”, n.d.). For example, one research states that many teenagers said that they wanted to save their virginity until marriage. There is no reason for parents and teachers to be afraid of the sex education. In short, sex education at school will not cause a negative impact on teenagers; conversely, it is helpful for parents, because they do not have to worry about their children and students will gain essential info about their health.

In conclusion, sex education in Kazakhstan will give more positive influence for teenagers and social life will be improved in Kazakhstan. Sex Education should be included in Kazakhstani schools because it will prevent many consequences, which may be caused by lack of knowledge. Sex education might be effective in Kazakhstan, because teenagers must be aware of this topic and be provided only with credible information.