Well, the sex ed curriculum that had everyone up in arms has been released, and you can see it here:
I briefly scanned through some of the textbooks. A very great deal of the stuff that the controversy was about is not in fact in the textbooks; it was once again just the media spreading rumours. No, they are not teaching kids to wank - the subject is barely mentioned at all. No, they are not giving grade four kids detailed descriptions of sex. In fact, if anything, the grade four curriculum is a waste of time. E.g. they have a whole chapter on HIV/AIDS - which does not one single time mention that it is a sexually transmitted disease. It only discusses how you will NOT get it, and how it can be transmitted via blood.
From grade 9 the curriculum is more graphic (i.e. detailed description of how to use a condom) - as it damn well should be, considering our rates of teenage pregnancy and STD infection. But it does not strike me at all as age-inappropriate, and it emphasizes over and over, in bold, that the safest choice is not to have sex.
More bothersome is that the curriculum does not seem to actually explain anywhere how babies are made; it seems to mostly omit a description of the biological processes involved. It talks about sex without really explaining in much detail what it is. (It occurs to me that such information is perhaps in the science curriculum, which may be why it is omitted here). It says, in the grade 6 textbook, that masturbation will not cause hair to grow on your palms, without explaining what masturbation is (I guess it will fall to embarrassed teachers to explain it). In the grade 8 textbook the term is finally defined in a glossary, without any further mention of the subject.
On the whole, the curriculum actually strikes me as having the same weakness as the curriculum for all subjects in general. In short, it is dry and boring as hell, consisting of bits and pieces, without any overall view. I am grateful I don’t have to go to school anymore.
Admittedly, I just scanned through the texts; they may be better than my first impression would suggest. At the least, I cannot see how they will do any harm.
Whether it will have any actual impact on any such issues as STDs, teenage pregnancy rates, bullying, sexual abuse etc. remains to be seen. I’m kind of doubtful.
Reminds me of something a friend of mine told me some years ago. The daughter of a colleague of his fell pregnant in matric, as I recall. Said the colleague: “I don’t understand how it could have happened. She has always gotten a distinction for life orientation!” One doesn’t know whether one should laugh or cry.