Sky News host Rita Panahi says the last thing the school curriculum needs is more social engineering, but that’s just what the Victorian government has in mind.

Ms Panahi said Education Minister James Merlino was working with a sexual assault campaigner who wished to “further entrench concepts such as toxic masculinity and slut-shaming” into the school curriculum.

“I’m all for kids being taught about consent in school, but it should be done from a fact-based legal framework. Kids should be taught what constitutes consent, that people who are inebriated cannot consent, nor those below a certain age,” she said.

“But they should not be brainwashed in the divisive politics of the activist class. Teaching impressionable kids about so-called toxic masculinity will only end in what we saw in a Victorian school with boys being forced to apologise for being born boys.

“Wouldn’t it be refreshing if there was as much focus on academic excellence as there is on indoctrination in Victorian schools? Perhaps then, our students wouldn’t trail those in Kazakhstan.”