By Ashlyn Vice, SA State Director
The recent incident at Renmark High School in South Australia involving a sex education session for Year 9 girls has sparked serious concerns about the content and supervision of such programs in our schools. According to The Advertiser, students were subjected to topics like bestiality and incest during an unsupervised session led by an outside speaker.
Disturbing Content and Lack of Supervision
“Young Riverland teenagers were made so uncomfortable by the graphic topics raised during an unsupervised sex education program that they made up excuses to flee the room” (The Advertiser, Novak & Baltutis, 2024). This lack of appropriate oversight is particularly troubling, especially given the sensitive nature of the content discussed.
“The students said bestiality was …. explained in detail and the presenter seemed to imply it was something practised by people who identified as LGBTQIA+.” “There was a slide for what the ‘plus’ means, and they just started randomly saying words that no-one knew, like bestiality,” A student told the ABC (Amelia Walters, 2024).
Parental Concerns and School Response
Parents were rightly upset by the lack of communication and the school’s failure to seek parental consent for the session. “Parents of students who took part, and the opposition, have criticised the content of the session, lack of supervision by school staff, and the fact the school did not seek parental consent for students to attend” (Novak & Baltutis, 2024).
The situation prompted Renmark High School principal Mat Evans to issue an apology to parents. The school has suspended the speaker pending an investigation by the Education Department.
Calls for Improved Policies
In light of these disturbing events the ACL calls for the urgent need for clear policies and guidelines in South Australian schools to safeguard our students’ well-being. Sex education programs must be age-appropriate, properly supervised, and aligned with family values.
Moving forward, schools must prioritise transparency and parental involvement in their curriculum planning. It is essential to restore trust between schools, parents, and the community.
Review Urgently Needed
The Renmark High School incident emphasises the need for a thorough review of sex education programs in South Australia and highlights the dangers of LGBTQI+ ideology-based sex education in schools.
When the key message of sex education centres around following curiosity, self-determined identity and desire, rather than fidelity, commitment, procreation, and respect – a platform is provided for inappropriate conversation. Parents ought to be the primary contributors to their child’s moral development, and international law recognises parents’ right to determine their children’s religious and moral instruction. The promotion of LGBTQI+ sex education is impeding on the innocence of South Australian children, and ought to be banned. Sarah Game’s Education and Children Services (Parental Primacy) Amendment Bill 2024, to be brought before the Upper House this month, seeks to do exactly that.
We must ensure that our students are protected from inappropriate content and that parents have a say in their children’s education by supporting Sarah Game’s amendment and calling on the Government for more accountability and transparency in education.
