Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health Education 2016 3. STATUS OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH EDUCATION IN MALDIVES The education system in the Maldives has numerous positive characteristics. Participation in formal education is universal among Maldivian children and according to the Center for Continuing Education the literacy rate of Maldives stands at 98.4% in 2012. Despite the findings that SRH is an essential part of a good educational curriculum, it had not been considered a part of the Maldivian formal education system then. However, a Life‐skills programme was initiated in the year 2000 which mainly targeted schools in the capital island, Male’. During the stakeholder meeting held with the Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2012, they discussed the efforts being made to incorporate Life‐skills, including RH into its national academic curriculum and estimated that the process will be fully completed by the year 2018.34 For the purpose of this study, the research team did an extensive study of all the text books that were allocated to the students from all grades in the government school and some of the international schools. It was identified that any information regarding SRH provided to students in schools were mainly delivered within the lessons. Topics or issues were mostly discussed in specific lessons within a specific subject such as Islamic Studies, General Science and Biology. Any lessons related to RH in Islamic Studies consisted of topics such as puberty, purification and cleansing rituals “Hineun”, marriage, fornication, adultery, and Hudud, the penalties for offenses under Islamic Law 34 Information received at Stakeholder Meetings with Ministry of Education, 2012. 24 STATUS OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH EDUCATION IN MALDIVES