Sexual Education in Denmark

DFPA launches 5th edition of successful CSE campaign in Danish schools

For the 5th year running the Danish Family Planning Association (DFPA) on Monday launches a national campaign on comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in Danish primary schools, lower secondary schools and upper secondary schools.

Once again the campaign is reaching record numbers of participants – all in all a total of 186,252 pupils aged from 10 to 19 years are enrolled in the campaign named Uge Sex (Week Sex).

Week Sex targets pupils from 4th to 13th grade in Danish primary and secondary schools. Almost 40 percent of pupils in primary and lower secondary schools in Denmark participate in the campaign in week six from the 6th to the 10th of February.
The purpose of Week Sex is to give teachers the opportunity to access quality CSE materials, which ensure captivating and professional sexuality education. The DFPA produces new materials for both pupils and teachers every year.

This year the title of the campaign is ’Gender really matters’, focusing on the desire, opportunities and right to express your gender on your own terms – without being discriminated.

The Danish minister for Education and Children, Christine Antorini says:
- The DFPA manages the important task of bringing into focus subjects, that can be difficult to talk about and the association has just assisted us in making whole new materials for the teachers. It focuses on the right to be who you are and contributes to the opportunity to teach about sexuality in a very competent way.

When the DFPA launched Week Sex in 2008, 39,000 students were enrolled, and that number has grown steadily over the past five years. In 2005 the DFPA carried out a mapping of CSE in Danish schools, which showed that only 1 in 10 teachers were satisfied with the comprehensive sexuality education they were offering. It showed a lack of knowledge among teachers as well as lack of current CSE materials in the schools.

In 2012 the campaign has grown to consist of:

• 14 different materials targeting both pupils and teachers at different levels of education · A total of 620 pages of material was produced this year. · 
• The target groups are grade 4-6, 7-9, 10-13, different kinds of upper secondary schools (vocational schools, production schools, trade/economic schools, general upper secondary schools) and as well as schools for pupils with disabilities. 
• 3 different websites targeting different age groups. 
• 23 videos with pupils and famous people in Denmark + pupils and LGBT activists Uganda talking about gender issues.
• Events around the country – among these a pre-launch event Thursday at the Danish Parliament where 11 MPs were taught CSE with media present.

2012 is the first year that the DFPA has included international angels to the campaign bringing in the voices of young girls and boys from Uganda on the same issues of gender that the Danish pupils were asked in the videos. Also, an article and two longer videos on LGBT rights and laws in Uganda/Africa/rest of the world are included in the CSE material.
2012 is also the second year that Sex og Politikk in Norway has adapted the campaign material to their own Week Sex campaign reaching a total of almost 37.000 pupils this year.
The Danish campaign also reaches Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

Next year, the campaign will also reach grade 2-3 and the following year grade 0-1.
For further information on Week Sex you are welcome to see further on www.ugesex.dk or to contact our project coordinator Pia Sandra Ernst Psa@sexogsamfund.dk or me.

Kind regards, BJARNE B. CHRISTENSEN Secretary General M +45 2729 0309 | D +45 3369 5609 | bbc@sexogsamfund.dk