Sex Education in Malaysia

To and not to implement sex education as one of the subjects taught in primary and secondary schools is a highly debatable issue since last year. Proposal has been sent to the parliament but there’s still no real action taken to carry out this proposal as government is concerning about the cost problem. However, if there is a will, there is a way. We can’t reject the whole proposal just because of one little problem. Sex education is urgently needed to prevent pregnancy among teenagers and to create awareness among teenage girls about the dangers involved as well as the responsibilities of such relationships.

During the transition period, teenagers are exposed to many new things including sex. Due to their curiosity towards sex plus they are shy to ask for more information from parents and teachers since sex is a taboo in the society, they will turn to friends, websites or even online friends whom they barely know to find out the truth about sex. These are unreliable sources of information which will most probably mislead the teenagers about sex. Sex is all about fun is a very wrong concept obtained by teenagers from media and friends. It can lead to a great increase in teenage pregnancy and that’s why, we need sex education conducted by specially trained teachers to reorient them about sex. We will “brain wash” them that responsibility always come with sex. We would tell the girls that they have the right to say no. We will warn the boys that girls are not solely sex objects. With that, teenage pregnancy can be reduced or even prevented.

In 2006, study done by University of Malaya had shown that 25% of 2005 girls surveyed believed that they could get pregnant by just sleeping next to a man. A survey conducted by National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) in August revealed that half of the 1,700 respondents, aged between 13 – 24 years old did not know how babies were born, while 2 out of 5 did not know where the foetus developed. This high level of ignorance among teenagers about rudimentary sexual and reproductive health causes them to be so vulnerable to become the victim of rapists. Someone might have raped them but unfortunately, they still don’t know what is happening. They might accidentally get conceived but due to ignorance about pregnancy and prenatal care, they pay no attention to take care of themselves during pregnancy and this can lead to various problems which endanger not only the going-to-born baby and the mother. The opponent of this issue might say that we are actually trying to encourage free sex among teenagers but this is totally incorrect. Learning about the moral values and values taught by different religion in Malaysia is part of the syllabus of sex education. Our main purpose of implementing sex education is to prevent pregnancy but if it fails to do so for some teenagers, at least we are able to reduce the fatality rate among babies conceived by teenagers and teenage mothers as they are well-equipped with knowledge about prenatal care. Therefore, it is really important to implement sex education in primary and secondary schools.