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No condoms in schools
by Sue Carr8/10/2008
PLANS to give out condoms in secondary schools have been scrapped over fears it would encourage youngsters to start having sex.
The idea was first suggested more than two years ago in a bid to cut the number of teenage pregnancies in Tameside.
But a council scrutiny panel has now thrown it out and instead recommended that contraception is made available in places like Connexions and through the youth service, particularly in the borough’s hotspot, Ashton.
Councillor Vincent Ricci, chair of the panel which scrutinises services for children and young people, said: "The problem we’ve got is that if you have condoms available in schools, you could say the council is being responsible. But you could also say that we’re allowing underage sex to happen, that it’s wrong but it’s okay. We are never going to win but we didn’t want to come across as though we were giving condoms out to everybody. Instead, we’ve recommended that they are made more accessible but in certain places where children have to go and ask for them. And we want to extend that to hotspot areas. We don’t want to make it easier for children to have sex but we are aware that some of them are having sex and we want them to be more responsible. It’s not just about getting pregnant, it’s also about sexually transmitted infections."
The recommendation is one of 58 listed in the panel’s review of teenage pregnancy which the council will now decide whether to implement.
The borough recorded 252 teenage pregnancies in 2006 – the fourth highest in Greater Manchester — according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. There has been no significant reduction in recent years, despite numerous initiatives including giving young girls ‘fake babies’ to look after and getting gymslip mums to talk to other teenagers about their experiences.
Most recent 2 of 2 user comments
12/10/2008 at 04:45
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Having no condoms in schools will be bad. You will end up with a scenario like Africa with a high rate of STD's and more teenage mums.
This council is stuck in the stone age.
13/10/2008 at 09:49