Policy: Education

In order to ensure an informed decision among young women regarding Gardasil, proper education must be enforced within the sexual education classroom. In order to attain this goal, we must speak to individuals’ in charge of the educational curricula. This process may involve approaching individuals at the federal, provincial and/or municipal levels.

Before contacting policy makers, we should advocate for an enriched sexual education program and raise administrators and parents’ awareness towards the lack of education regarding HPV. Next, we should contact principles of schools, and eventually contact the various chairs and directors of education, within each municipality. From there, we can contact the province’s ministry of education and present our goals and recommendations pertaining to a properly administered sexual education class.

Each province in Canada consists of a minister of education. For example, the minister of education in Ontario is Kathleen Wynne. One of her main roles is to issue the curricula taught within primary and secondary schools. In order to make changes to the sex education program, it would be beneficial to contact her or the deputy minister of education, Steve Marshall. We can also contact individuals’ part of the education system at a municipal level, by targeting specific school boards. For example, we can contact trustee members of the Toronto District School Board. 22 public school trustees are elected during the municipal elections, in order to represent public school supporters in the City of Toronto. Monthly meetings take place between the trustee members, and it would be beneficial to raise the trustees awareness towards the benefits of enriching the sex education program. Finally, it would be beneficial to contact the director of education (Toronto district) Gerry Connelly, in order to achieve our goal.

It would also be beneficial for us to collaborate with the National Council of Family Relations (http://www.ncfr.org/about/index.asp) In the past, they have reported many issues with sex education (ie: teachers discomfort with teaching these materials) and they can help us to get our voices and opinions heard.

Finally, the sexual education curriculum within schools is based upon the sexual education material presented by Health Canada. Therefore, we would have to contact the Minister of Health, Community Acquired Infections Division and the Centre Infectious Disease Prevention and Control. Here we could express our concerns with regards to Gardasil, and the educational program’s lack of information concerning HPV as a disease.