Ensuring South Australian children and young people have the knowledge and skills to experience positive, healthy, and respectful relationships is critical to the enjoyment of all rights set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
All children and young people should have access to comprehensive and inclusive information about relationships and sexuality regardless of their age, ability, socioeconomic background or engagement with mainstream schooling. A key way this can be implemented is through formal education where young people learn about positive relationships, sexual health and wellbeing. This education must start in early childhood and engage children and young people consistently over time, rather than on a one-off basis.
Both state and federal governments recognise the important role of education and school settings in efforts to address gender-based violence. While South Australia’s state-based curriculum and the national Australian Curriculum support educators to deliver some core elements of relationships and sexual health education, it is difficult to assess what, when and how such curriculum is being delivered.
This Policy Position builds on the Commissioner’s extensive engagement with children and young people across South Australia on a range of issues, including experiences of school-based relationships and sexual health education, the impacts of sexism and gender stereotypes, children’s rights and wellbeing at school more broadly, and their perspectives on friendships and belonging.