RESEARCHERS FROM THE University of Galway will today urge TDs to ensure adequate sexual consent education is provided in secondary schools.

Among their recommendations is that SPHE become a leaving certificate subject with a specific module on consensual behaviour as recommended by a 2022 Joint Committee report on leaving certificate reform.

Representatives from the Active Consent Programme at the University of Galway will appear before the Oireachtas committee on education at 11am this morning to discuss consent education in Ireland.

They will be joined by representatives from University College Cork’s (UCC) Bystander Intervention Programme who will outline their work on a pilot consent programme in Irish secondary schools.

The UCC representatives will tell TDs that a Rape Crisis Network Ireland report in 2021 found a “shocking” prevalence of sexual harassment and violence among young people.

According to this research, 83% of those surveyed had witnessed some form of sexual harassment.

The UCC Bystander Intervention programme aims to educate staff and students to recognise all forms of sexual hostility, harassment, and violence, and empower participants to make safe and effective interventions.

Following receipt of funding from the Irish Research Council in 2022, the programme created a bespoke age-appropriate programme for secondary school senior cycle students.

The UCC representatives will today outline the “hugely positive” experience reported by the 50 schools that took part and will tell TDs that they maintain a waiting list of schools who want to participate.

Meanwhile, the representatives from the University of Galway will tell TDs about their Active Consent programme which was pioneered in 2013. 

They will tell committee members that the programme’s ethos is “that consent is ongoing, mutual, and freely given – that consent is for everyone, in all relationships, across genders and sexual orientations, and for each type of intimacy whether or not someone ever choose to engage in it”.

The University of Galway representatives will urge the committee to adopt a “developmental and ecological” approach for young people on the topic of consent so that there will be a seamless transition from entry to post-primary school and on to further and higher education.

In addition to supporting the recommendation of SPHE becoming a leaving certificate subject, the representatives will encourage TDs to push for the mainstreaming of counselling services in schools. 

They also want to see an agreed standard of professional competency among educators in the area of consent.