Sex education or information by pornography? The rise in teenage pregnancy costs us dearly darling

New figures from the Office for National Statistics show teenage conception rates have risen throughout 2007 and remain the highest in Europe.

We are failing an entire generation of young people by not educating them properly and they are missing out on their childhoods as well as reducing their future life chances.

The economic consequences of failing to get to grips with the issue are stark: young people relying on state benefits for years to come and perpetuating a cycle of teenage parenting down through the generations.

The reason teenage conception rates are rising is because young people not only need to know how, but why not to get pregnant, which is why Straight Talking Peer Education delivers its programmes in schools.

Straight Talking employs teenage parents and trains them to deliver a programme to 13-16-year-olds about what it’s like to be pregnant and a parent.

When you consider the cost of long-term state benefits, it is a lot cheaper to give young people proper sex and relationships education in the first place.

We live in a highly sexualised society and if we continue leave sex education to the playground and pornographers, we will see more young people barefoot and pregnant.

Straight Talking wants the Government to implement the findings of its 1999 report into teenage pregnancy which found that one reason rates were so high was because young people had no understanding about the implications of being a parent.

The report found that ‘the reality of bringing up a child, often alone and on a low income is not being taught to children’.

We are working in more and more schools around the country but it’s not enough.

Our programme needs to be alongside good quality sex education in every school in the UK.

No ifs. No buts.

The Government’s failure to fully implement its 1999 report has huge social and economic implications.