[violette]

Professional organisations can play a bigger role in educating the Singaporean youth about sexuality issues — if the results of a survey conducted by one such family service centre are anything to go by.

And to get the messages through to them effectively, pictures, videos and the sharing of personal experiences are more likely do the trick than boring lectures and lessons.

In a bid to probe the sexual attitudes of teenagers, Fei Yue Community Services surveyed 1,383 secondary school students, asking them questions on how the media has influenced their thoughts on sexuality, how they respond to sexual invitations and what they thought of current sex-education programmes.

Eight in 10 respondents felt that sexuality education is important, while 68.9 per cent rated the programmes they had attended as "somewhat effective".

But the youth felt professional organisations would do a better job at sex education than their teachers, parent volunteers or religious leaders.

Students are still awkward about confiding in their teachers on sexuality issues and would be "less defensive" if the messages come from other sources, said Fei Yue's senior social worker Ailene Wee. Most of the respondents also feel their parents are not comfortable broaching the topic with them.

It also surfaced that what the students feel should be discussed may not be in line with the Education Ministry's overall emphasis on abstinence. In the survey, respondents ranked the abstinence message as one of the least important topics they want covered.

Acknowledging that the focus on abstinence can be "quite limiting" for classroom discussions, a secondary school teacher in charge of sexuality education in his school said that teachers do encourage discussion on other sexuality issues.

The teacher, who did not want to be named, also told TODAY that professional bodies would only be more effective if they conducted the programmes regularly, so that students could be more familiar with them. - TODAY/fa

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...248425/1/.html

[lee_chiharu]

yupez.. i agree tat educating the teens by those professional bodies will be much better.. :mellow3:

[violette]

yup, more accurate information from the professional lor~

[lee_chiharu]

ya lor.. and then i tink it will be better for the teachers tooz.. cos for those professional bodies.. after they educate.. they will jus leave the sch etc.. not paisehz at all.. cos u might not c each other again.. then for teachers.. different lehz.. then if the teacher say something.. i bet lotsa student will spread n gossip..!!

[violette]

true, if i am the student.. i will feel awkward to talk to the teacher and siam far far de~ hard to raise questions relating to sex~

[burtonho1990]

haha when teacher talk about sex the class go whooooo

[xiiaoqingwa]

yea.. true!

[Finale]

precisely.. teacher only read from book and some may be out dated.