Talking sex grows on schools
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More of the Beijing's children will get the chance to learn about sex, thanks to the roll-out of a sex education program in Feburary.
The program started last year as a pilot project but an additional group of 45 primary and middle schools will join it next year.
The program, initiated by the Beijing Education Commission and the sex education research center at Capital Normal University, is the first of its kind in Beijing. It started in 2009 with the participation of 10 primary schools and 20 middle schools.
"We have realized that without appropriate guidance, problems will appear in the children's lives and continue into adulthood," said Zhang Meimei, director of the sex education research center.
The schools, which applied to join the second round of the pilot program, include 15 primary and 30 middle schools.
It has been suggested by experts that 6 is the most appropriate age for students to start receiving sex education, but most Chinese children receive it after age 15, if at all. Sex education has long been missing in most schools in the city. The new program's content is designed in accordance with the children's age.
Zhang said that primary school students will learn to recognize different parts of the body and to distinguish the gender differences. Middle school students will learn about contraception, venereal diseases and ways to communicate with the opposite sex, while coping with puppy love is the focus for high school students.
The program is necessary because the easy exposure to TV programs, which are designed for adults, and Internet pornography pose problems for children's sexual development, Zhang said.
A report on Chinese adolescents' reproductive health indicates that 22.4 percent of participants engaged in premarital sex, among which 51.2 percent didn't use contraception.
More than 20 percent of the participants experienced an involuntary pregnancy, which led to 91 percent of them having an abortion.
About 164 million respondents aged between 15 and 24 took part in the research, which was jointly conducted by the United Nations Population Fund and Peking University. It was released in April.
Schools that participated in the sex education pilot program in the past year saw positive results, said Zhang Yue, president of Xisi Middle School who is also the supervisor of the program.
The 30 schools in the first group took different approaches, with some setting up physiology classes.
Xisi Middle School chose to integrate sex education into different subjects, such as biology and Chinese and history. For example, biology classes included topics such as HIV and AIDS and China's family planning policy.
"Many students understand that the sex impulse and affection toward the opposite gender is a normal physiological reaction, and there are scientific ways to deal with it," she said.
Although there has been promising feedback, Zhang Meimei said there is still a long way to go before sex education is taught in every school in town.
"The lack of qualified teachers and people's traditional mindset that sex is taboo among young children are barriers that hinder sex education in schools," she said.
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