What is needed, together with the curriculum, is training for those willing to teach this sensitive subject, as is done in most countries. The seriousness of the present situation is not a matter of opinion or hearsay. Surveys and studies on students and school-leavers show an alarming gap in essential sexual knowledge together with clear evidence of increasingly early sexual experience. They were aware of the kind of programs in other countries that have been successful. Such views have been totally discredited by all known studies, which have shown that sex education, properly taught, encourages responsible sexual behavior, and that parents as a group are poor providers of sex education.
Few children receive reliable sexual information from their parents.
And now, with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's plunge into cyberspace through the Multimedia Super Corridor, and every child getting access to the Internet, this change can only be accelerated. The threat of an AlDS epidemic in the region makes this even more urgent. The challenge now is for the politicians to decide whether they can commit to the objective that youth should be fully informed on sexual matters. To bring this about requires a strategy that would include close liaison with parents, police, youth and women's organizations and the media. But any effort must start with the schools.