Public consultation ends today. What's changing in the Citizenship discipline?
After the Prime Minister announced, about nine months ago, a review of the Citizenship and Development course, intended to free it from "ideological constraints," the new general guidelines were released in early July by the Ministry of Education. At the time, the ministry assured that no topics would be eliminated, but the details were only released two weeks ago, when the document went out for public consultation, sparking a heated debate.
Starting next academic year, Citizenship and Development will be regulated by Essential Learning, in line with a new National Strategy for Citizenship Education, which will replace the current guiding documents for the subject.
Launched in 2017 by the then socialist minister Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, Citizenship and Development functions as a cross-cutting area of work in the 1st cycle, a subject in the 2nd and 3rd cycles, and as a training component in secondary school, with schools deciding whether it is taught as a stand-alone subject or in a multidisciplinary way.
This organization will not be changed, but the 17 domains so far, some mandatory and others optional, will be integrated into eight dimensions. mandatory: Human Rights, Democracy and Political Institutions, Sustainable Development, Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship, Health, Media, Risk and Road Safety, and Pluralism and Cultural Diversity.
The new curriculum for the subject, however, appears to give less attention to topics such as sexuality (without any reference to the words "sexual" or "sexuality"), which are treated only in the context of health and human rights violations, despite the Minister of Education guaranteeing that content related to sexual education will not disappear from the curriculum.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (MECI) guarantees that the topic is included in the essential learning in the “Health” dimension and that, under the 2009 regime, it is also present in other subjects.
"It would be a huge step backward if sexuality education were removed from schools and student education. And if that were true, the outcry that arose would make sense," the minister stated on the third day of the public consultation, in statements that were not enough to quiet the protests.
During the two weeks of public consultation, positions in defense of sexual education multiplied, including that expressed by the Portuguese Order of Psychologists in an opinion sent to the Government, highlighting the proven impact on prevention of risky behavior and gender-based violence.
Also on the side of the political parties, the changes to Citizenship and Development proposed by the Executive did not please either the right or the left.
