Nicola Roberts: Sex education should be compulsory

Nicola Roberts thinks sex education should be "compulsory" in all schools with special attention being paid to the rise of sexting.
The former Girls Aloud singer – who is an ambassador for children’s charity Barnardo’s – has called on the British Government to provide youngsters with the information they need to prevent themselves being caught up with the trend of sending naked pictures online among their classmates.
She said: "With sexting becoming such a huge problem, it’s essential that children know how to protect themselves online.
"It’s down to the Government to stop letting them fend for themselves online and protect children proving compulsory sex and relationships education."
The 31-year-old pop beauty has previously been vocal of disgust that sex education isn’t used to put an end to the sexting culture of sharing explicit messages and photos and the problems that can stem from sending material like that for young people.
Taking to Twitter in March last year, the ‘Beat of My Drum’ hitmaker slammed Education Secretary Nicky Morgan for not making it a mandatory lesson.
At the time, she wrote: "I caught the section ‘This Morning’ ran with today about a recent survey that shows our nation has a sexting epidemic within schools … How is it uninspiring that teenagers who are naturally inquisitive, expressive and experimental are sharing images of themselves given that they are becoming sexually active? … There is no mandatory sexual education in schools …. They are teaching themselves … The adults are not openly talking about it so the children are leading the children (sic)"
And Nicola has provided her guideline as to how they should approach and teach the subject.
She added: "Along with the sexual exploitation problem we have, I don’t know why Nicky Morgan the education secretary isn’t backing the solid change and updating the curriculum to support and guide the young people … Giving schools guidelines & the option o only teach it where the individual school feels necessary will only keep giving us the same result … It’s frustrating to see articles on this and back and forth quotes from MPs, when actually the young people would benefit massively from some education on a healthy attitude towards the ‘epidemic.’ "