Schools lift the veil on xxx education in China

[amg]

At last year's xxx 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 xxxual experience.

The situation was different in past years, but not much. Well-known xxxology 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 xxxually experienced.

Pan also found that about 6.5 percent of college students had tried xxx during their high school years.

Given those circumstances, changes to the traditional methods of xxx 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 xxxual 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 xxxual health at an earlier age. That's very helpful to their growth."

AIDS has been a driving force behind recent changes in xxx 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 heteroxxxual contact. Another 5.1 percent contracted the virus via male homoxxxual 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 xxx 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 xxx 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 xxx can lead xxxxagers 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 xxx education at an earlier age is absolutely necessary," said Wang, especially for teaching children to beware of xxxual 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 xxxual health," said the man, surnamed Deng.



Source: Xinhua