Schools in New Zealand have been urged to use students’ preferred names, gender and pronouns in class and on their records in updated guidelines from the education ministry that are intended to emphasise inclusion and diversity.

The recommendations were rewritten to account for the ubiquity of social media and online pornography, human rights law and “shifting societal norms relating to sexuality and gender diversity”, the government said.

“The new guidelines will ensure that the teaching of relationships and sexuality education in our schools will no longer be left to chance,” said Tracey Martin, the associate education minister. The policies have been welcomed by advocates for LGBTQ youth, but decried by those who believe trans students should be barred from using bathrooms of their choice.

For the first time the guidelines – which had not been updated since 2002 – have been split into separate primary school (for students up to approximately 12 years old) and secondary school documents. Students should be taught to critically analyse their own relationships, the recommendations say.

Schools at all levels are “encouraged to question gender stereotypes and assumptions about sexuality, including gender norms, gender binaries, gender stereotypes and sex norms, for example, the assumption that sex characteristics at birth are always male or female”. Read more via Guardian