From this academic year, Lithuanian secondary school students are being taught “life skills”, a programme that includes classes on safe traffic, emotional well-being, and sex education. Conservatively-minded parent organisations and politicians, however, are alarmed that children will be encouraged to have premarital sex and taught tolerance towards LGBTQ+ people.
The life skills classes will be taught to students aged 6-16 and will cover “social and emotional education, prevention of psychoactive substance use, prevention of bullying and violence, suicide prevention, sex education, health education, as well as first aid and safety”, according to the Education, Science and Sport Ministry.
The curriculum has recently become a target of attacks from conservative groups. The Lithuanian Family Movement – a group campaigning for “traditional family” and against LGBTQ+ rights – has claimed that life skills classes will be a “Trojan horse” to teach students about “genderism”.
“The teaching will follow the recommendations, and the recommendations are all very one-sided. This is a Trojan horse through which LGBT and genderist ideology will enter schools,” said Algimantas Rusteika, board member of the Lithuanian Family Movement.
He argued that the lists of recommended literature and experts are dominated by pro-LGBTQ+ articles and organisations.
On social media, opponents have made false claims that four-year-olds will be instructed on how to masturbate and older students will be taught how to make “contraceptive devices for oral sex”.
The latter claim was made this week by Ignas Vėgėlė, a lawyer-turned-politician who has previously made a name by opposing restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I am not sure that a child in year seven needs to be told which contraceptives can be chosen on their own or with a doctor’s supervision, or how to make a contraceptive device for oral sex, which is the example given in the link to the curriculum,” he said on Tuesday, referring to a screenshot that spread on social media showing how to make a dental dam to prevent infections during oral sex.
According to Daiva Šukytė, one of the authors of the life skills curriculum, the chart referenced by Vėgėlė is not intended for students, but comes from a methodological publication for teachers called A Practical Guide to Sexuality Education.
“The teacher has to prepare for the classes. The methodological guidelines contain information from official bodies and organisations for the teachers to instruct themselves. The teacher has to be ready to answer children’s questions, but he or she does not have to do what Vėgėlė talks about, it is not in the curriculum,” says Šukytė.
According to the Education Ministry, sex education makes up around 10-15 percent of the life skills classes.
“The life skills programme is very broad. It is a series of lessons that will give all students the opportunity to develop the skills they need to live a safe and healthy life. The foundation of the programme itself is social-emotional education, and it is expanded to include topics relevant to a growing person, such as prevention of the use of psychoactive substances, bullying and violence, suicide prevention, health education, and first aid,” Agnė Liucilė Andriuškevičienė, an adviser to the education minister, told LRT.lt.
The sex education part, she added, includes age-appropriate instruction on self-exploration, building sustainable relationships, and drawing lines.
According to Šukytė, the moral panic about the new programme is a way for politicians and organisations to score political points.
“This is yet another scare tactic. [...] It is a pity that this is being done at the expense of children, teachers, and families,” she said.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
