Does Canada have comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education? A national assessment of public school curricula
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) aims to equip youth to make informed decisions about their bodies and sexuality to lead healthier lives. The nature of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education in Canada is determined locally by provincial and territorial governments, resulting in inconsistent coverage, delivery, and quality of curricula. This study assessed the strengths and gaps of Canadian SRH curricula using the United Nations’ International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education and offers evidence-based policy recommendations. Methods: Provincial and territorial SRH curricula for Grades 6–12 for Canadian public schools were extracted from publicly available governmental websites and examined using the 94 learning objectives across 8 Key Concept Areas (KCA) and 27 Topics obtained from the UNESCO Guidance. Each curriculum was reviewed by two researchers and given a Comprehensiveness Score (CS). The number of Guidance learning objectives addressed within a Topic was calculated as the Topic score, and the sum of the Topic scores within a KCA was reported as the KCA score. Results: The mean CS across Canada was 57.94%, with the highest score being 81.91% (ON) and the lowest being 37.23% (NWT). KCA 5 (Skills for Health and Wellbeing) (65.93%) and KCA 2 (Values, Rights, Culture and Sexuality) (63.46%) had the highest coverage across Canada, while key gaps included KCA 8 (Sexual and Reproductive Health) (51.44)%. The lowest-scoring topics were Topic 8.2 (11.54%) and Topic 1.4 (21.79%), with learning objectives on long-term parenting and relationships, and HIV and AIDS stigma and care widely missing. Conclusions: SRH curricula across Canada vary in comprehensiveness. Increasing alignment and comprehensiveness of SRH curricula across the country, while allowing for context-specific additions in each province or territory, could improve the quality and consistency of SRH education. In addition, SRH curricula should be regularly evaluated and updated as needed, ensuring they reflect societal changes and are evidence-informed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.015 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.011 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".