Sexuality education becoming increasingly popular in schools

source: ChannelNewsAsia, 21 January 2006, by Pearl Maria Forss

More schools are conducting sexuality education programmes over and above the number of hours stipulated by the Education Ministry. And many are getting external help for this as talking about sex in schools is getting more popular. 

Although the Education Ministry expects junior colleges to meet 4 hours of sexuality education in a year and secondary schools 6 hours as part of their Civics and Moral Education classes, some schools are giving their students more. And concerned over the growing incidence of teen sex, they are working with external organisations to fill in certain areas their teachers lack expertise in.

Anderson Junior College for example is holding four 4-hour sexuality education talks this year. Students there will spend 1 to 2 hours discussing the topic with their teachers in class and there'll also be a week-long sexuality education exhibition. 

Woo Soo Min, Vice Principal, Anderson Junior College, said: "It is not just about sexuality, it is touching on the values of the students, how they perceive themselves. We feel this topic should be broached with greater depth, that's why we feel that we would like to spend more time on it." 

Mrs Woo's view seems to be shared by other schools. Last year, the Family Life Society conducted sexuality education talks in 29 schools, Focus on the Family in 25 schools and newly set up non-profit groups ALife and Liberty League in 10 and 5 schools respectively. 

With such a growing interest, more are entering the lucrative sexuality education business. 

Kenneth Ng, Managing Director, Synergy Coaching, said: "Competition is very stiff in this market, there are people who freelance, and they don't have much cost, and they come in and charge one or two dollar per student for a 3-hour programme. We don't go by price war, price war we will die. Some schools pay directly to us, in some schools they use the Edusave fund and for some students who do not have much fund left, they use their own money to pay for the programme." 

Businesses like Synergy Coaching charge about S$1,000 for a 3-hour sexuality education talk. Its programme focuses on the importance of abstinence, and uses graphic realities of irresponsible sexual behaviour to get the message across. 

Four schools used their services in 2005. But it may be too soon to say if the message of abstinence and safe sex is getting across. All the organisations involved in sexuality education concur that currently, about 20 per cent of the teenage population is sexually active. And the figure for sexually transmitted diseases infection among youngsters has more than doubled in the last 3 years to over 600. 

Andrew Kong, Senior Executive, Family Life Society, said: "Those figures would be much much much higher if it weren't for the programme by MOE and the VWOs. The success of our programme is not measured by whether or not people do abstain but whether or not they are trying to abstain."

These organisations believe more teenagers will be open to the concept of abstinence once they are convinced of the dangers of irresponsible sexual behaviour. The difficult task, they say, lies in convincing them, particularly when sex is often glamorised in international popular culture.

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