Debbi Tohill: Rape Prevention Education spokesperson on the importance of teaching consent in schools

There's support for teaching Kiwi students about healthy relationships and consent as part of a refresh of school sex education standards.

Gender and sexuality guidelines are being removed - and an expert group will rewrite the curriculum. 

An Education Review Office report has found too much inconsistency in what's taught.

Advocacy group Rape Prevention Education's Debbi Tohill says young people need to really understand what consent means. 

"We can't begin early enough, I don't think, to be talking to our children about consent."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back here in New Zealand, the Education Minister has announced
a refresh of the sex ed curriculum in schools. The
existing curriculum was designed in two thousand and seven and
a recent EERO report found that there are lots of
problems with the way it's implemented. A draft of the
new topic areas will be available to be taught in
term one next year. Debbie Tohill is from the Rape
Prevention Education and she joins me now, Debbie good evening, Sure,

(00:24):
thank you for being with me. What needs I were surprised,
as I think the Minister was, to hear that consent
wasn't in the curriculum. It's not compulsory to be taught
in all schools to all students. Were you surprised to
hear that No?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I wasn't surprised.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
It's an area that we work. Can we educate a
lot of schools in the Auckland area?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
And what do you think needs to be in this curriculum?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Absolutely, we need to ensure, particularly the work that I
do is in high schools. We need to make sure
that young people have really good understanding of what a
healthy relationship looks like and have already got understanding of
what consent means.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
What age should we be teaching kids about this stuff?
Do you do? You think?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Ah, a lot. We can't begin early enough.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
I don't think to be talking to our children about consent.
But as I say, we work particularly with high school
students in years nineteen and thirteen, right.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Because some parents, I imagine, and I don't know. I'm
not a parent myself, so I don't know, but I
imagine some parents would have would be uncomfortable with talking
with their kids that young talking about sexual stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
That may be true, but the reality is that all
of our almost of our young people are going to
become sexually active at some stage, and probably in their teens.
So it's really good that they have the knowledge and
skills and know what it is that they're getting themselves into.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Basically, I think it's really.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Important to have those conversations.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
And if you don't want your kid to have them,
then you basically have to take your kid out of school.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
You can have them remove from that class if that's
what you choose.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Should we be including things like sexuality and gender identity
in this Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yes, absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
I think you know, young people at that age are
exploring what their thoughts and feelings are around gender and sexuality.
It's something that they see more and more on social media,
and the better inform they are, the better decisions they
are going to be able to make.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
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