Parents would be given a say on what their children are taught about sensitive issues including sex education under Scottish Conservative plans.
The party’s manifesto contains a pledge to establish parent panels in every council area to ensure that school lessons on socially-contentious subjects are age-appropriate for their kids.
Scottish Conservative education spokesperson Miles Briggs said the “common-sense” policy would reassure parents and ensure controversial policies like the SNP’s pupil sex surveys – which posed intrusive questions of their children – never saw the light of day.
He added that parents were better judges of what was appropriate material for their children to be taught on issues like sex and personal morality than Nationalist ministers or council education officials.
Scottish Conservative shadow education spokesperson Miles Briggs said: “These common-sense plans would give parents a say in what their children are taught in areas like sex education.
“Our parent panels would ensure pupils receive age-appropriate information on sensitive issues.
“The sex survey which SNP ministers foisted upon Scottish schoolkids asked intrusive and deeply inappropriate questions that left many pupils and parents feeling uncomfortable.
“Parent panels would guard against damaging initiatives like this being introduced in the first place and curtail the influence of government-funded activists who seek to impose their agendas, on issues like gender, in our schools.
“The Scottish Conservatives believe that parents are better judges of what’s right for their kids to learn on socially-contentious issues than SNP ministers or education officials.
“Scotland’s once-leading education system has been trashed by almost two decades of Nationalist rule, with plummeting standards and rising classroom violence. That’s why voters should back the Scottish Conservatives on their peach ballot to stop an SNP majority.”
Notes to editors
Relevant section of the Scottish Conservative manifesto:
Introduce parent panels to oversee the content their children are taught on socially contentious issues such as sex education. Children should always be taught material that is age appropriate for them, but sometimes this is not the case and parents end up being left in the dark. We would introduce parent panels in every local authority area that would get oversight of the content taught in lessons that cover contentious social issues, whether that be sex education or other topics that touch on personal morality.