§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of schools teach sex education ; and what steps she is taking to promote 645W a national policy of sex education in secondary schools instead of the current piecemeal approach.
§ Miss Margaret Jackson:Sex education in schools is generally associated with other curricular matters such as health education, biology, science, home economics or religious and moral education. In the view of Her Majesty's Inspectorate it is included in the curriculum in one or other of these ways at nearly all secondary schools. My Department does not, however, regularly collect data about the curriculum offered by individual schools, which remains a matter for individual local education authorities and the schools themselves. My Department published a handbook "Health Education in Schools" in 1977 which included a chapter on sex education.