THE Department of Education (DepEd) plans to enrich and enhance the reproductive and comprehensive sexuality education for students as part of an integrated approach to teaching and learning for students.

DepEd Assistant Secretary G.H. Ambat, during her visit in Cebu for the launching of the Integrated Curriculum (IC) on Thursday, May 30, encouraged teachers to incorporate the comprehensive sexuality education with subjects like Science, Social Studies and Economics.

Through this, Ambat said the students will be aware and will have enough knowledge of what they should do and avoid in regard to the subject.

Starting this month, schools in Cebu Province will implement the IC approach to learning--a holistic and gender-sensitive method of teaching. The province will be the pilot area for this approach.

Ambat explained that through Science, teachers teach the students about their bodies, as well as how to take good care of them. In Social Studies, the children will learn about the various societal problems like overpopulation. In Economics, they will find out about the effects of overpopulation to the country’s economy.

Motivating the OSY

Ambat also encouraged students to engage in sports and other cultural program.

Through this kind of intervention, Ambat believed the number of early pregnancy cases and early marriage among the students, which, according to her, is one of the reasons students drop out of schools, would fall.

“It is through this that we can educate our children holistically,” she said.

Based on their report, Ambat said there were 3.6 million out-of-school youth (OSY) nationwide, as of 2017. Their ages ranged from six to 24 years old. Eighty-four percent of them are females.

Ambat believed that most of these females stopped going to school because they either got pregnant or got married early.

That is why Ambat said DepEd has partnered with local government units to motivate these children to go back to school or take the alternative learning system.

Aside from early pregnancy and marriage, other issues that Ambat pointed out why students don’t go back to school are financial concerns and lack of interest.

She encouraged teachers and parents to work together in motivating the youth to learn.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” said Ambat. (JJL)