About 80 percent of children and young people in Croatia now learn about sexuality from the internet.
This figure, revealed in a study by the Croatian Institute of Public Health, is extremely worrying, says the country's ombudswoman for equality, Višnja Ljubičić.
But it is hardly a surprise — given that comprehensive sex education has still not made it onto the country's national curriculum.
Some look with envy at countries such as Sweden, where sex education was introduced in the 1940s and made compulsory in 1955. Even in kindergartens, the topic is at least touched upon.
In Croatia, NGOs have been calling in vain for comprehensive sex education to be introduced in schools. Anamarija Sočo, from the organisation Status M, points out that in Croatia, as part of the cross-curricula ‘health’ programme, only one school lesson per year is devoted to sexuality.
In cities such as Zagreb and Rijeka, efforts have been underway for several years to promote sex education in schools.
However, this approach can only offer it as an ‘optional’ subject, as compulsory subjects are decided at the national level.
In Lithuania, in contrast, sex education is indeed part of the curriculum. According to a survey by the Lithuanian Pupils' Union, however, many are dissatisfied with how it is taught. "In two years, there hasn't been a single sex education lesson," said one pupil.
Another school reported that, every six months, a single video is shown on how to use a condom — and that's it. Several schools reported that the boys and girls were separated for the few sex education lessons that were taught.
Moreover, many teachers only provide superficial information. One student surveyed said: ‘We are frustrated because the lessons are presented in a dismissive manner, as if we were not mature enough for such things.’
Lithuania's health ministry, which is responsible for this area, responded when asked in only rather general terms: "Sex education is complex and consistent. Children's development is taken into account in education, and age-appropriate materials and scientifically sound information are used."
Meanwhile, in Romania, sex education remains a particularly sensitive issue in 2025.
The country's education minister, Daniel David, decided that sex education should not be taught as a separate school subject, explaining that ‘the debate has become highly ideologised’.
Instead, he opted for a subject called ‘Health Education’, which can be taught in biology classes. He agreed that children must have access to relevant information in the field of sex education, but in a form that is ‘not ideologically biased, that is highly pragmatic, and natural’.
Meanwhile, Belgium provides compulsory sexuality education, implemented differently across Flanders, Wallonia, and the German-speaking community. Flanders integrates it throughout the curriculum, focusing on relationships, consent, diversity, and health, while Wallonia mandates at least two hours yearly.
The part of sex education that deals with contraception and sexually-transmitted diseases is taught only from the eighth grade onwards. The fact that parental consent is required for this led to heated parliamentary debates in 2022.
Similarly, in Bulgaria, sex education is not a separate subject. Instead, it is integrated into ‘biology and health education’ in grades eight to twelve.
In Greece, sex education is taught as part of the subject area ‘wellbeing’, which also includes ‘environment’, ‘social awareness and responsibility’ and ‘creativity and innovation’.
However, since teachers are free to choose which of these topics they will cover and how much time they will spend on them, sex education is often brushed aside and replaced by less "sensitive" topics, reports the media outlet Efsyn.
In Poland, for a long time, the sole related subject was ‘education for family life.’ With the start of the school year in September 2025, a new, non-compulsory subject called ‘health education’ was introduced.
This is also meant to cover sexual health, which is a thorn in the side of the national conservative Law & Justice (PiS) party, which was voted out of office in 2023.
Critics from the PiS camp argued that the health education curriculum "contains harmful content, including the separation of sexuality from love, marriage and family, the promotion of abortion as a health service and the spread of gender ideology."
The Catholic Church, which in Poland plays a particularly influential role, also denounced the lessons as "anti-family", "gender-destabilising" and said that they would "morally corrupt children".
At the start of the new school year, France also introduced compulsory lessons on gender equality, consent and sex education.
Initiated by education minister Élisabeth Borne, the reform aims to provide better education and so to help combat sexual violence against women and girls.
In fact, since 2001, there has been a legal requirement for three compulsory lessons per year on sex education. An official report from 2021, however, stated that this requirement had by then been implemented for less than 20 percent of pupils.
The new regulation has also angered conservative groups in France, and a petition against the reform gathered more than 80,000 signatures.
In comparison, the situation in Austria appears far less controversial.
There, sex education is part of the curriculum from primary school onwards, anchored as a teaching principle or as part of the educational area of ‘health and exercise’, and it is also integrated into certain compulsory subjects.
Depending on the type of school, sex education is integrated into subjects such as general education (primary school), biology and environmental studies, religion, psychology and philosophy.
A 2015 policy statement by Austrian ministry of education states: "Contemporary sex education is now understood as a form of school education that begins in early childhood, is appropriate to the age of the child, and continues into adulthood."
In Austria, children and adolescents are expected to be provided with “information and skills” that “enable them to act responsibly toward themselves and others”. Parents play a central role in this, as do institutions such as kindergartens and schools.
Schools can decide for themselves whether to teach sex education internally or whether to use external, quality-assured programmes.
The ministry of education has its own department for quality assurance of external providers of sex education in schools. Completion of a quality assurance process is a prerequisite for providers to be approved to teach sex education in schools.
Most recently, however, the 2024 Gender Health Report commissioned by the ministry of health revealed gaps in the representative data on sex education in Austria.
In general, 72 percent of young people in the country would like to know more about sexual and reproductive health. Boys are mainly interested in contraception and sexually transmitted infections, while girls are particularly interested in the menstrual cycle.
The article was created as part of the PULSE project, a European initiative supporting international journalistic cooperation. It was translated by Anton Baer (Voxeurop).