Schools lift the veil on sex education

by Chinese media writer Wang Aihua

BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Chinese media) -- "Mama!" Gu Mengran, 12,

turned to her mother when asked about the sex education class at school, giving

a shy smile.

Encouraged by her open-minded mother, Gu finally opened up.

"Our teacher always turned over that page and told us

to read it by ourselves," she said. It is now her first year in the junior high

section of the Nanjing Foreign Language School in the eastern Jiangsu Province.

It seems this is the standard way for teachers across

China to deal with the sexual health part of their public health classes.

Wang Shengjie, a 26-year-old Chinese teacher at the

Beijing No.80 High School, recalled how teachers at her middle school skillfully

skipped the chapter.

In a culture where open talk about sex has been taboo

for centuries, such reticence might once have been acceptable, but no longer.

The numbers tell the story.

At last year's sex culture festival in Guangzhou,

capital of the southern Guangdong Province, birth control officials said about

17.7 percent of the province's high school students had had sexual experience.

The situation was different in past years, but not

much. Well-known sexology professor Pan Suiming at the Renmin University of

China in Beijing found in his 2001 survey that about 17 percent of the college

students in China were sexually experienced.

Pan also found that about 6.5 percent of college

students had tried sex during their high school years.

Given those circumstances, changes to the traditional

methods of sex education seem imperative.

On Dec. 26, the Ministry of Education issued new

guidelines that said primary schools across China should teach pupils about the

human body, including secondary sexual characteristics.

Previously, this sort of information was for high

school students only, and teachers would pass over those pages in the textbook

and leave them to read on their own.

The new guidelines stipulate that junior high school

students should start learning about AIDS and how to prevent it.

Beijing anti-AIDS campaigner Xiao Dong applauded the

new policy. "With the new policy, children can learn about sexual health at an

earlier age. That's very helpful to their growth."

AIDS has been a driving force behind recent changes

in sex education.

Ministry of Health figures show China has about

264,000 confirmed HIV cases and about 78,000 of them are AIDS patients.

Among those who contracted the virus in the first

nine months of last year, about 40.4 percent were infected by heterosexual

contact. Another 5.1 percent contracted the virus via male homosexual activity,

a sharp increase over the previous years.

Xiao Dong, who heads the Chaoyang Chinese AIDS

Volunteer Group, said his group was turned away by several universities when it

proposed to hand out free condoms and set up condom-vending machines on campus.

"The way school managers avoid talking about sex as

if it was a fatal disease will sow danger for the health of our younger

generation," Xiao said.

Zhou Ping, a 27-year-old engineer who works for a

U.S. company in Shanghai, said he and his friends in college learned the most

about sex by watching pornography.

Zhou joked how he had a heated discussion with a

friend in junior high school and concluded that babies are born after their

parents walked hand in hand.

"Free and open discussions about sex can lead

teenagers to the right growth path, especially the boys," he said.

Teacher Wang Shengjie, however, took a conservative

view of the policy change. "Kids may be horrified if they know all the secrets

of the human body at the age of nine or ten.

"But sex education at an earlier age is absolutely

necessary," said Wang, especially for teaching children to beware of sexual

predators.

Xiao also voiced concern. "Just like the teachers in

the past, the key to this new policy is whether it can be effectively

implemented."

According to the director of the teaching office at

the Zhongguancun No. 1 Primary School in Beijing, the school will adjust to the

new policy.

"We will assign teachers who have studied psychology

in college to teach public health courses, which include sexual health," said

the man, surnamed Deng.

Gu, although shy at first, said she wouldn't be

embarrassed if she had to learn about AIDS or sex in class.

"Actually, one of my male classmates was curious

about that page and chased our teacher after class for further explanation," Gu

said, giggling.