Nowhere is the generation gap between Costa Rican youth and adults more marked than on the subject of sex education. Evangelical adults and Catholic bishops tend to believe that such instruction should be left to largely ill-informed parents.

A recent survey of kids 15-19 years old reveals that 92% feel that 13 years old is not too soon to begin learning about sex and 60% would like to see it taught by professionals in primary school.

A comprehensive course in the subject is due to begin next year for high school students. But an Evangelical pushback resulted in the courts giving parents the chance to opt their children out of the plan.

The National Sexual and Reproductive Health Survey of 2010 turned up the figures which seem to exonerate Education Minister Leonardo Garnier who has received much flak from religionists about the new high school course.

In fact, teens feel that Garnier’s program comes too late — only 8% felt that it should be given to kids 15-18 years old. The vast majority feel that the sex education course is a good idea — if a trifle late.

The program is spurred on by the fact that 14,000 unplanned births to minors are registered annually, most of them mistakes brought on by ignorance and the antiquated machismo of society.

Moreover, although fundamentalists of several religious groups may oppose the course, it is relatively sophisticated, taking into account such teen pregnancy issues as low self-esteem.

But boys are hazy about the subject as well. The survey revealed that 28% of the males did not know that the condom should go on after erection, not before. The troublesome and risky practice can account for some of those 14,000 unwanted pregnancies.

The spike in teen pregnancies comes at a time when, overall, the national birth rate on the average is 1.9 children per woman. As late as 1992, it was 3.2 per woman.

Today, fully a quarter of Costa Rican women between 25 and 29 years old are childless. But many of the rest have a child before reaching their maturity through ignorance. In fact, the survey indicates that it is the informed woman who decides how many children she will have.

The survey also indicates that 40% of all Costa Rican teens between 15 and 19 years old are sexually active — but only half of those use contraception.

No matter what Evangelical parents want, the poll shows that their kids are overwhelmingly in favor of sex education — 95.8% of the girls (actually higher than the average) and 91.4% of the boys.

As if in answer to conservative Catholics who fear that “exposing” kids to the sex course will cause more activity and promote the use of condoms, 81% of women between 19 and 49 years old already employ some means of contraception.

Modern reality, it seems, has caught up with and surpassed ultra-conservative religious doctrine. But the kids know better.

Source: Fijatevos.com