Plea for sex education from Prathom 1
Sex education should be given at least 1 hours a year from Prathom 3 (our group 16). This is the plea of Pawana Rienwanee, technical director of the Thai branch of Path, an international NGO that deals with health issues.
At the moment the lessons, if they are given at all, take 8 hours. Sex education is often embedded in other subjects, such as health education and math and science.
'It's important that schools treat sex studies as its own subject. It's also necessary that the subject be taught continuously and in a manner appropriate to the age of students', says Pawana. The course should cover all aspects of sexuality, human anatomy, reproduction, sexual intercourse and sex. Current sex education in schools is too concerned with 'no sex, no safe sex', which Pawana says can be counterproductive.
The age at which Thai and foreign children have their first sexual intercourse does not differ that much. But Thailand has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Asia, although it has a strict abortion law: 7 out of 100 teenage girls become pregnant, making the country second in the world. The number of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) is also higher than in other countries.
In July, the Private Education Commission ordered all vocational schools to make sex education, which is currently an elective, a compulsory subject. Classes will be taught one hour per week for two semesters starting this school year.
Sounds like a tough story to me. The 13-year-old girls sometimes seem to be toddlers here, while the girls in the Netherlands sometimes seem grown up.