Health education like a G.E.D.?

There is no scale to measure the harmfulness of this statement. It would have been better if Kosiniak-Kamysz had said directly: - We have received too many calls from the bishops, we cannot afford to ignore the voice of the Church. Or maybe we can, but we don't want to, so health education will be for the willing.

But what, instead of this (over)honesty, did the PSL politician dish out? He strengthened the opponents of health education, sharing their argumentation regarding the alleged violation - by the introduction of this subject - of parents' right to raise their children. Meanwhile, health education, its core curriculum, does not contain elements of upbringing. Even if we are talking about a narrow slice of sexual health education - imparting knowledge about contraceptive methods, to cite one of the most emotionally inflammatory points, is nothing more than imparting information. On the side of the family (and the institutions shaping ethical and moral attitudes, i.e., the Church, for example) remains education, the result of which will be what, when and to what extent a young person will do with the knowledge he or she has.

But health education cannot be reduced to sex education. All knowledge about preventive health care, about proper, health-promoting health choices - in terms of both somatic and mental health, knowledge about, for example, immunizations and also the whole spectrum of "alternative medicine", pseudoscience, recognizing medical fake news and manipulation. Also knowledge of how to protect oneself from violence (sexual, psychological in the real world and cyberspace). The Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, sees no reason to equip children and young people with weapons against one of the greatest threats to civilization, namely - disinformation. Which is all the more dangerous (even deadly) the more barren the ground it falls on, devoid of basic information.

There is nowhere to draw optimism from. Literally a few days ago, the Minister of National Education stated that while she personally is convinced that health education should be compulsory, various scenarios are being considered on the matter. This is a pretty clear signal that the decision on the matter is not final, so it's as possible as possible that health education will have the status of VET, family life education, perhaps the most irrelevant of school subjects over the past decades. Irrelevant and unremarkable.