PUPILS as young as 14 should learn how to change a nappy, bath a baby and recognise the first signs of meningitis, teachers will be told this week.

Lynn Edwards, the outgoing chairwoman of the Professional Association of Teachers, will call for parenting classes to be made compulsory for all pupils aged 14 to 16.

Britain has the worst teenage pregnancy rates in Europe. According to Unicef, in 2004 almost 42,000 girls under 18 became pregnant, of whom 8,000 were aged 15 or younger. This year an 11-year-old girl entered the record books as the nation’s youngest mother.

Mrs Edwards, a mother and grandmother who teaches geography at Saltley secondary school in Birmingham, has seen generations of students leave school at 16 and become parents at 18. “I’m not encouraging teenagers to get pregnant or have children but to think about the responsibilities of becoming a parent. But if we’re not teaching students how to be good parents, then we’re not equipping them for what comes after school,” she will say.

Basing her views, in part, on her experience as a mother of twins who left hospital not knowing how to change a nappy, Mrs Edwards says that the logical place to embed this training is in the curriculum at key stage 4. She will say that such training is even more critical than before because many young people now live too far away from home to rely on relatives to help them with their children.

Mrs Edwards will tell the association’s conference in Oxford that parent craft should be incorporated into personal and social education as part of the national curriculum.

Pupils would be encouraged to discuss all stages of bringing up a child — from the benefits of breast-feeding and coping with a toddler’s tantrums — to instilling discipline in a teenager. Mrs Edwards believes that this would encourage teenagers to challenge their own behaviour.

However, critics of the plan point out that personal and social education is not yet a compulsory part of the curriculum and is already crowded, with topics such as food, bullying and sexual health.

The Department for Education and Skills said that some schools do incorporate parenting skills, but do not go as far as teaching nappy changing.

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