Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Good afternoon and welcome to the Education Committee. Thank you for your time today and for joining us to give your evidence. You provided some briefing material in advance that members will have had the opportunity to look at. I am happy to hand over to you for any opening remarks or an initial presentation. We usually ask for that to be up to 10 minutes. We will then move to questions from members on your evidence and how it relates to our inquiry. We usually set aside around five minutes per member per question. Just bear that in mind in how long you take to respond to the questions, but, depending on the subject matter, we can be flexible.

Professor Maria Lohan (Queen's University Belfast): Thank you very much. It is very nice to meet you all. I will begin by saying that the two takeaway messages that are important from my presentation today can be summarised by two words, which are "relationships" and "co-production". They come from the idea that most people have concerns about relationships and sexuality education (RSE) that can largely be addressed in the design of the curriculum. The materials taught in schools can be produced in a positive collaboration between researchers, schools — meaning pupils and teachers — and parents. Secondly, the concern that many people have with relationships and sexuality education is that, all too often, it is thought of as being just about sexuality education, when of course it is primarily about relationships education and good-quality relationships, including sexual relationships.

I know that the Committee has been sitting for a while and you are all very well-versed in this area but, for the sake of starting on the same hymn sheet with me today, I would like to offer the following definition of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) from UNESCO:

That is the definition that I will use and refer to today when I talk about comprehensive sexuality education. As we all know, comprehensive sexuality education is the human right of the child, as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). I also want to bring you the research that designates from young people's perspective that it is a need. A great deal of research among young people has expressed that CSE is a need for young people, and human rights standards state that the curricula should be developed with young people's input, including the co-design of services and programmes with young people.

The international policy community has also expressed this need. The United Nations provides technical guidance and standards that I have found very useful over the many years that I have been developing and designing RSE. It has developed very helpful guidelines. Also, helpfully, the World Health Organization has reviewed the evidence on CSE and concluded, from all the evidence, that it can help adolescents develop knowledge and understanding, positive values, respect for gender equality, diversity and human rights and attitudes and skills that contribute to safe, healthy and positive relationships.

Then, it comes to, "Well, why schools?". The research here says that schools are key to the universal delivery of comprehensive sexuality education. Young people who cite school as their main source of information about sex are less likely to report unsafe sex and previous STI diagnosis. In addition, school-based CSE is considered to be the most cost-effective way in which to deliver sex education; it is more cost-effective than extracurricular interventions. However, as UNESCO would acknowledge, out-of-school provision is less researched. It would also acknowledge that, despite the WHO philosophy of leaving no one behind, school-based CSE will not reach everyone. In particular, it leaves out young people in care, incarcerated young people and displaced populations. We should also think about those groups.

I will move to research that gives us a perspective on the question: "How do you provide good CSE?". If CSE is necessary and should be taught in schools, how do you provide good CSE? The evidence that I want to present to you is from systematic reviews of evidence rather than being persuaded by one study or another, so it is an amalgamation of a great body of evidence. In fact, recently, I was asked to summarise that for UNESCO, and I summarised the evidence from 40 systematic reviews, so it is based on a very large body of research. The key components of good CSE that I have identified from that are teacher training and a curriculum-based approach, which really means a scaffolding approach, bringing in issues at developmentally appropriate stages and consistently along the curriculum. There is also the use of theoretically based programmes that target knowledge, skills and attitudes. That really just means a pedagogically sound approach to teaching CSE in the way in which you might teach any other subject; by thinking about it holistically.

I concentrated on the use of culturally sensitive and gender-sensitive interventions in the development of RSE here in Northern Ireland, because we were mindful that the research stated that boys, in particular, often disengage from CSE — disengage at best and, sometimes, at worst, can be disruptive in classes, actually. They can be somewhat alienated from RSE and, often, we focus it in on girls. Gender-sensitive programmes also bring boys into the mix and talk about positive masculinity. Culturally sensitive programmes are ones that young people can identify with. In my work here, we developed resources specifically with Northern Ireland in mind, but also the four nations of the UK, so we had slightly different versions for Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales so that young people could really identify with the issues. You may also be aware that we have developed the programmes for Irish-medium schools at their request, but the key issue here is that programmes are culturally sensitive and that young people will identify with them.

The use of videos, films, games or what we might call "digital media" promotes personal identification with educational issues and the engagement of young people.

The key message about teaching skills is that it is not just about imparting information but developing skills in the classroom, such as practising talking and "stop and think" skills on key issues. The next one is to facilitate linkages with support services so that schools do not feel isolated, are connected with broader child safety programmes, have somewhere to turn to if issues arise and do not have to make it up as they go along, and that they link with the NHS. The final one is to facilitate communication between the child and the parent or caregiver as part of CSE.

I want to deal briefly with that key area because I know that you have been addressing it. I just want to talk about how we developed it through the research in Northern Ireland. I will start with a more general point from the research. Meta-analysis has demonstrated that RSE interventions that positively involve parents improve communications about relationships and sexuality between parents and adolescents and increase safer relationships and sexual behaviours. However, the research would also suggest that parent-child communication around those subjects is not easy. That was certainly our evidence when we researched this earlier in Ireland.

More broadly in the research, however, evidence suggests that barriers to parental-adolescent communication on sexual behaviours are relayed through parental perspectives that suggest that their religious and cultural beliefs are opposed to sex before marriage or adolescent sex — that would be a barrier; their own embarrassment about the issue or their adolescents' embarrassment; their own perceptions of their poor knowledge and skills in doing this; and a perception or misconception that if they talk to their child about those issues, they may, in fact, be encouraging the young person's early sexual activity.

Mindful of all that, when we were developing comprehensive sexuality education programmes on this in the UK, as part of our large, randomised control trial, we were exploring how best to implement comprehensive sexuality education on these islands. That trial was called the JACK trial. We developed a parental intervention as part of that. The JACK trial was across the UK and was the first randomised control trial that included faith-based schools. It involved 24 schools and 2,697 pupils in Northern Ireland alone, and it involved 8,000 pupils overall.

The intervention for parents, which we co-designed with parents, was a school-based text from the school first of all, informing them that their child would be taking the programme called 'If I Were Jack', and a letter with information about the programme. That was followed up with a text sent from the school but with digital programme materials for parents: videos, fact sheets and tips for parents. Those components were co-designed with parents to encourage them to talk to their child about these issues. Also, as part of the programme, pupils brought home a homework activity, to prompt it from the side of the young adolescent. From our perspective, that helped to smooth implementation of the programme in schools and helped parents to become involved.

In conclusion, I will return to the two key messages that, in my experience over the past 20 years, are important in developing RSE, which are co-production and relationships. Thank you very much.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you very much. There are two things that I would like to pick up on first and maybe the co-production and parental side secondly. First, at the outset, you spoke about teacher training and teachers needing to feel equipped. The Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) report in April 2023 was clear that feedback from teachers showed that they did not feel confident in delivering RSE. How well are teachers prepared at teacher training level for delivering RSE?

Professor Lohan: One of the key incentives for schools to take on our programme 'If I Were Jack' was because we included teacher training. We included an hour-long, face-to-face teacher training programme and brought them right through all the classroom materials. The second reason that they wanted to take it on was because the programme had lesson plans laid out to assist teachers.

That is not to say that that is why the 'If I Were Jack' programme is important. It is to say that that is why schools are interested in it. They recognise that they want teacher training. There is, of course, resource for teacher training in Northern Ireland. It is not that it does not happen. Historically, it has been delivered through the Department of Health, and then out through the Belfast Trust and so on. The Belfast Trust gave its remit throughout Northern Ireland. So, it does happen, but not enough, and teachers do feel ill-prepared.

More importantly, when we researched young people's perspectives on the delivery of the programme, they said that that was the key issue in whether they enjoyed it, engaged with it or did not. If they felt that the teacher was prepared and willing to convey the messages in a rounded way, they felt engaged. As you know, young people will pick up on that straight away.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is not about just the initial teacher training but ongoing training and ensuring that whoever is delivering it feels equipped to do so.

Professor Lohan: Ongoing, yes. Is it not true that we leave it too late? We do not do any of that in university training. Universities can have a role at an early stage, rather than leaving it to be picked up at the late stage of continuing professional development (CPD).

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We had a stakeholder engagement session last night. At that event, it came through that there was a perception among teachers that to be landed with delivering RSE was to draw the short straw. Would you concur, therefore, that we need to enthuse teachers about the importance of RSE far upstream in their career?

Professor Lohan: Absolutely. I would like to praise the teachers from my experience of being in schools in Northern Ireland. They were superb. They took on RSE because they wanted the students to have a holistic education, although they knew that it would be difficult. They were terrific.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful.

Parental engagement is critical. We have had much discussion about parental opt-out, misinformation campaigns and those issues, but the academic evidence that we have heard has exclusively been that, if you engage well with parents, it is successful. Taking into consideration the learnings of the 'If I were Jack' project, what would you advise the Department of Education that it or the Education Authority (EA) could do to better support schools to engage with parents?

Professor Lohan: My key message is this: do not wait for parental withdrawal. If you have waited until then, it is too late in the day. That is a slightly negative approach that leaves parents feeling isolated and on the back foot. Start positively with parents. Bring them in at the outset. That is what we did. You cannot bring in all parents, but you can bring in some representation. Then, when schools want to talk about their curriculum, you can have a parental representative to talk to parents at the start of the year when they discuss the curriculum as a whole. Another way of describing that is "early intervention".

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I think that David wants to come in on that point.

Mr Brooks: You said that, when it comes to representation, you cannot always talk to everyone. I understand that. I agree with there being parental involvement and engagement; we heard that at the event that we were at last night. In the interests of trust-building, is there not an advantage to, at least, giving every parent the opportunity to hear what will be presented to their child? That was discussed last night at the table that I was at. I think that it was a representative from Informing Choices who said that one thing they found to be quite successful was talking to parents about what the children were going to hear before it came to the children, because that demystified things for the parents. Is there not an advantage to making sure that everybody has that opportunity?

Professor Lohan: Yes, absolutely. From my understanding of the school system, that curriculum meeting presents an excellent opportunity to do that at the outset of the year. We did that with the 'If I were Jack' programme by sending a letter to the parents in advance of it being taught to say, "This is what it is: your child will be doing this programme, and here is some information about it".

Mr Sheehan: Thank you, Maria, for your presentation. I will stay on the subject of opt-out for a second. What is your view on the parental opt-out? Is it a good or bad thing, or are you indifferent to it?

Professor Lohan: I do not have an evidence-based view on opt-out, because I have not seen the research that compares approaches to CSE where there is opt-out with those where there is not. On the basis of my years of experience working on RSE, I can say that I have started at the other side, engaging parents at the start and bringing them through the programme. I do not really have a personal view on parental opt-out.

Mr Sheehan: I told our previous contributor that we had a round table discussion last night with a number of stakeholder groups. One person was from an organisation that delivers RSE in schools and in other settings. He said that where there was resistance from parents and he had discussions with them, their fears were allayed.

Professor Lohan: Assuaged. Yes.

Mr Sheehan: Quite often, there is misinformation and disinformation out there, and parents believe that RSE is going to sexualise their children rather than give them information to allow them to protect themselves and to avoid coercive relationships and so on. I have a view that the starting point with parents should be to highlight the outcomes from RSE, such as reduced pregnancy rates, reduced STI rates and delayed engagement in sexual activity. Do some parents have the view that it is not their child who will get pregnant?

Professor Lohan: Yes. I could not agree with you more. In a way, that is why I began my presentation with the WHO evidence. The WHO is a trusted organisation that can impartially review the evidence. I have reviewed the evidence, and I can produce it, but it is very helpful to point out the WHO evidence and say that, yes, it will reduce the adverse health outcomes that you have referred to, but, even more positively, it will generate positive relationships. It is not just about reducing those harms, but it is about generating values for gender equality and positive, happy, non-coercive relationships.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks.

Ms Hunter: I have one final question. Thank you for being here today. Obviously, a huge part of what we are talking about is establishing what a healthy relationship is, what it looks like and respect for boundaries. Recently, I saw the awful news that a young lady was stabbed to death in England, but because she was under 18, it was seen as a knife crime and not a domestic violence crime. It brought to light that our lack of effective RSE prevents young people from feeling empowered and knowing the signs of domestic abuse in its many forms. At the moment, we do not have a standardised RSE approach. As a direct result of that, are we opening up children and young people across Northern Ireland to being victims of domestic abuse, but because they are under 18, they do not get the correct information and knowledge? Words have power; they can put a name to things. Do you think it contributes to domestic violence among under-18s?

Professor Lohan: The opening part of my evidence also said that one of the most important ways of doing CSE well is to have a curriculum-based approach, and that means the standardised approach that you referred to. It means covering all the issues, and the word "comprehensive" is important, at a developmentally appropriate stage. UNESCO offers guidance on how that should be built through a scaffolding approach. Reducing gender-based violence in all its forms is definitely a key outcome and a key ambition of CSE. It is about the kind of information that you said, but it is also about gender norms, respectful relationships and, crucially, engaging boys, so that we do not leave boys to look at the internet and feel that toxic masculinity is an appropriate role model for male behaviours.

Most of the young men whom I have met throughout this education are also interested in positive and respectful relationships — even the young men whom I worked with in the prisons in Northern Ireland and Scotland. You would be surprised: they have the same ambitions as we would hope they have. They believe that toxic masculinity is not an ideal for men, but they want to know the difference, and they want to be encouraged to think about the difference.

Ms Hunter: Thank you very much.

Mrs Guy: There is just one small thing. David mentioned Informing Choices NI. We had a session with stakeholders last night, and one of the groups there told us about the parental engagement that they had had and how effective it was in allaying concerns around RSE. However, they were specifically referring to special educational needs (SEN). The JACK trial did not include schools from that cohort. Do you have any views on RSE in that context, even from your other research in this area?

Professor Lohan: Yes. That is an area that we need to develop further. We did not specifically include SEN schools in the JACK trial, though we did carry it out in mainstream schools where there was SEN provision, and we provided some guidance on how it could be accommodated within that context. Good research exists into how to do that well. I would especially point you to resources on the Rutgers site, in the Netherlands, which are also available in English. It has the best resources for SEN. However, I have not done that work in Northern Ireland, and I would very much like to. I think that our experiences in the prisons was rather similar in some ways, because we were dealing with young men with very low literacy and very low attention span. So, there was some overlap with the SEN issues, although that is not to say that those are entirely the same.

Mrs Guy: Thank you.

Mr Brooks: I want to ask you about the masculinity theme that you were speaking about. You talked about positive masculinity. We can imagine that some of those positive elements are to do with relationships, consent and all of that. Are you able to provide a bit more insight into what positive masculinity involves? We hear a lot about toxic masculinity, incel culture and so on, and we are all agreed about the toxicity of some of that stuff. From your point of view and that of your programme, what does positive masculinity look like?

Professor Lohan: 'If I were Jack' begins with an interactive video about a young man called Jack, who has just discovered that his girlfriend is unintentionally pregnant. Jack is 16 years of age, and he is wondering what to do. The story follows a week in Jack's life, where he thinks about how he got into this situation and how he could have prevented it. What is he going to say to his girlfriend? The video plays out some of those scenes. What are his friends going to say? The video plays out some supportive messages to young men and some less-supportive messages. He has to think, "What would my friends say?" and then, "What will my parents say?". The video goes through some positive and some negative reactions to those questions.

The story brings the young man along with the idea of thinking that unintended pregnancy is not just a girls' issue but it is his issue as well. He needs to think about his role and responsibility in preventing an unintended pregnancy and in having consensual relationships. His relationship is clearly portrayed as a consensual one, but still, the video brings young men through that situation. It paints a picture of a young man who is thinking about those issues and not leaving them —.

Mr Brooks: Taking responsibility.

Professor Lohan: Yes, but it was very non-directional, because the young man also had to think through issues such as, "What should we do?". It is very non-directive. In consultation with the RSE policy stakeholders whom we have dealt with over the years, it does not define one path or the other but opens up the questions, "How can I think about this?", and it asks what the pros and cons are of either keeping the baby, having a pregnancy termination, or, indeed, putting the baby up for adoption. It is very interesting that the choice to put the baby up for adoption is in there. We were asked to do that by the Health Service Executive of Ireland, because it was also interested in thinking through young people's decisions around that. It takes out some of the binary of whether keeping the baby or having an abortion are the only two options. It brings in other choices and shows, in a non-directive manner, how you can think through all the issues.

Mr Brooks: Thank you for explaining that to us.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We have no other indications from members. That is a very helpful note on which to finish. Over the past number of evidence sessions, we have tried to pin down a programme that allows young people to consider information, weigh things up and help inform their choices in a way that, maybe, creates space for a moral, ethical framework but also engages with the facts of the world around them. That has been a very, very helpful conclusion to the session.

Would it be possible to share any of the JACK resources with Committee members? I think that there would be interest in seeing them. Is that possible?

Professor Lohan: Absolutely. It is possible. I have already provided that to you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The interactive video that you referred to.

Professor Lohan: Yes, it is all publicly accessible. You can view it in Irish or English; indeed, you can view it in Lesotho's language. It is all available in the resources that I have given you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There are links to that; that is helpful. We would all probably benefit from having a good, thorough look at those. Thank you.

Professor Lohan: Thanks very much. It is wonderful to meet you, and thank you so much for all the work that you are doing on this.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We appreciate your time. Thank you.