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Sex education in primary schools needed to cut teenage pregnancy and unprotected underage sex

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23 October 2006

Children should be taught about the importance of contraception in their last year of primary school, according to new research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) to be published next month. The report shows that British teenagers are the most sexual active in Europe and are third least likely to use a condom during underage sex.

Britain has the highest rate of births to teenagers in Europe, with an average of 26 live births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 – nearly a fifth higher than Latvia, the country with the next highest rate, and more than four times the rate of Cyprus, Slovenia, Sweden and Denmark. Despite a concerted efforts from Government and a target to halve teenage pregnancy rates between 1999 and 2010, progress remains frustratingly slow: there were 41.4 conceptions per thousand women under the age of 18 in 2005 – just 2.9 per thousand lower than in 1991.

The report shows that almost one in three 15 year olds didn’t use a condom during their last sexual intercourse. It shows that British teenagers’ sexual health is considerably poorer than it was a decade ago. In the last ten years:

Levels of genital chlamydia rose by 508 for male and 238 percent for female teenagers.
Levels of genital herpes rose by 52 for male and 38 percent for female teenagers.
Levels of syphilis increased nearly 16 fold for males and 14 fold for female teenagers.

ippr’s report, Freedom’s Orphans: Raising Youth in a Changing World, will be published next month (Nov) and will recommend:

Teenagers should be offered a full choice of contraception, including long-lasting forms – like the Implanon implant which last three years. Condoms should be widely available at low cost, or no cost, to young people in places that they use and are accessible to them sports facilities, schools and further education colleges.
Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) including sex and relationship education should become a statutory subject in all primary and secondary schools in England and Wales.
Services for parents, including information on parenting and childcare, access to parenting groups and more specialised support for parents who want and would benefit from it, should be offered at every school, when it extends its opening hours from 8am-6pm.
Access to support and information for teenage mothers and teenagers who have had abortions should be improved, in order to tackle the number of teenagers experiencing second pregnancies.

Julia Margo, ippr Senior Research Fellow, said:

“ Over the last 50 years, the average age of first sexual intercourse has fallen from 20 for men and 21 for women in the 1950s to 16 by the mid-1990s. The proportion of young people who are sexually active before the age of consent has risen from less than one percent to 25 percent over the same period. Our education system must respond in kind and start teaching children about the risks involved in sex before they even consider taking those risks.”

Notes to Editors

The proportion of 15 year olds who had sexual intercourse in the period 2001/2 was:
15 percent in Poland,
16 percent in Spain,
18 percent in Estonia,
18 percent in Latvia,
18 percent in the Czech Republic,
19 percent in Lithuania,
21 percent in Austria,
21 percent in Hungary,
22 percent in Greece,
22 percent in France,
23 percent in the Netherlands,
24 percent in Italy,
25 percent in Belgium,
25 percent in Portugal,
26 percent in Slovenia,
28 percent in Germany,
28 percent in Finland,
28 percent in Sweden,
38 percent in the United Kingdom.

Proportion of 15 year olds who used a condom during their last sexual intercourse, 2001/2:
65 percent in Sweden,
66 percent in Finland,
70 percent in Germany,
70 percent in the United Kingdom,
71 percent in Belgium,
73 percent in Poland,
73 percent in Portugal,
73 percent in Estonia,
74 percent in Slovenia,
76 percent in Lithuania,
78 percent in the Netherlands,
78 percent in Hungary,
79 percent in Latvia,
82 percent in Austria,
82 percent in France,
87 percent in Greece,
89 percent in Spain.