The RSE Curriculum Fails to Protect Our Children: Inclusion is Safety, and Exclusion is Betrayal

The release of the draft Health and Physical Education curriculum, including its mandated framework for relationships and sexuality education (RSE), signals a disheartening retreat from the realities of young people’s lives in Aotearoa.

Heralded by some as a restoration of traditional values, I am profoundly disappointed, finding the new curriculum is detrimentally reductive, regressive, and far worse than originally feared.

Aotearoa must abandon the fractured approach outlined in this draft and adopt a truly holistic, evidence-based strategy that prioritises the safety of all tamariki and rangatahi (children and young people).

Structural Failure: When Education Becomes Fragmented

The decision to rename the “Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) guidelines” to simply “sex education” is highly problematic because it signifies a reductive and detrimental shift away from a comprehensive, holistic approach to student well-being.

This focus on “sex education” tends to be heavily dominated by a risk-based approach, neglecting the positive dimensions of relationships and sexuality.

This shows that content has been taken out of a comprehensive, holistic framework, resulting in a curriculum that is regressive and fractured and fails to provide the comprehensive knowledge base young people require. The previous 2020 guidelines, which were removed, supported internationally recognised best practice that was “holistic, comprehensive, inclusive and evidence-based”.

Exclusion is a Direct Threat to Vulnerable Youth

A most urgent failure of the draft curriculum is the almost complete erasure of diverse identities.

The framework removes every single reference to sexual orientation, gender identity (outside of gender stereotypes), and intersex experiences.

This omission is not merely a political oversight; it is detrimental to the safety and well-being of our most vulnerable young people.

Data from the What About Me Report identifies that approximately 20% (or 1 in 5) of young people identify as part of the rainbow community. This exclusion will make a huge number of students invisible when they are learning about relationships and sexuality.

Exclusion exacerbates the stigma and discrimination for those already facing significant mental health challenges.

Excluding these identities increases the risk of marginalisation, mental health struggles, and tragically, suicide.

Omitting these topics means young people miss out on the critical skills needed to understand themselves and the world, putting their safety at risk both within and outside school.

The Dangerous Myth of “Parental Responsibility”

While some voices in the consultation process—termed the “less or later RSE” group by the NZCER report—argue RSE should be left to the discretion of parents, asserting it is the “parent’s right & responsibility,” our experience shows this assumption is dangerously flawed.

ECPAT Child Alert Trust’s latest research, “I’m just content to them”: Children living through sexual exploitation in Aotearoa New Zealand, confirms that parents and immediate caregivers, who should be the first line of disclosure and protection, are frequently barriers to safety.

Perpetrators of child sexual exploitation (CSE) are often people embedded in the child’s life, such as boyfriends, family friends, or family members. Disclosure is forestalled by the victim’s profound fear that the perpetrator will inflict harm or even kill them or their family members, as abusers explicitly threaten.

This reality means that any curriculum designed to safeguard children cannot rely solely on the premise of “parental discretion”.

Systems must be equipped to intervene because many young people lack access to a safe, credible, and responsive adult network

The Curriculum is Too Late to Address Real-World Risk

The timing of critical developmental topics in the draft is dangerously late, failing to reflect the lived realities of tamariki and rangatahi.

1. Puberty and Development: Puberty is not discussed until Year 5, despite many young people already being well into these changes earlier. Our research advocates for early and direct language about consent, boundaries, and touch starting around six years old, to developmentally prepare children before exposure to risk.
2. Online Exploitation: Information regarding online safety and harmful content (like pornography) is postponed until Year 8. This misses the crucial fact that young people, on average, begin encountering this content around Year 5. Our report found that online exploitation capitalises on young people’s access to devices and digital spaces often lacking adult oversight.
3. Early Harm: Prevention is desperately needed earlier. The What About Me Report shows that 19% of young people surveyed reported unwanted sexual contact, with female, Māori, disabled, and rainbow young people being at higher risk. Furthermore, delaying topics like contraception and STIs until Year 10 ignores that some young people are already sexually active by Years 9–10.

A Narrow Focus That Misses the Mark

Finally, the draft curriculum focuses too heavily on a risk-based approach, neglecting the holistic, positive dimensions of sex, intimacy, and healthy relationships.

There is a distinct lack of positive messaging about healthy relationships, respect, and well-being, which are essential for emotional and social development.

Foundational knowledge, such as comprehensive information on body parts and contraception, is absent or delayed. Consent education must be taught and understood alongside crucial topics like healthy relationships, drug and alcohol use, and digital safety—all of which should be mandatory.

The framework also lacks clear linkages to mental health and overall well-being, despite the What About Me Report highlighting a “worrying picture of high need” and a deterioration in mental health measures over time for young people.

Effective RSE must explicitly connect sexual health, relationships, and online safety with mental health support.

I call on the Ministry to listen to the voices of experts and the lived experiences of survivors. We must reinstate a comprehensive, inclusive RSE framework that equips every young person for a safe and informed future.