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Students need better sex education, survey shows

Junior high school students may have the wrong idea about sex and relationships as the Internet, with its unfiltered information, has become an important source of information on the subject, Tainan City's Family Education Center director Chiang Ming-chuan (蔣銘娟) said during a telephone interview with the Taipei Times yesterday

Chiang was citing the results of a survey conducted by the center. Valid returns on the poll on sex and dating were collected from 1,164 junior high school students across the city last month, a news release from the center said.

"Through the survey, we found that the Internet is basically the whole world for junior high school students," Chiang said.

Almost 60 percent of respondents said they met friends of the opposite gender via the Internet, the survey showed. Among them, 73 percent did so through instant messaging software, 55 percent through online games and 23 percent made friends through their blogs.

Besides being a platform for making friends, the survey also showed that 48 percent considered the Internet their primary source of sex education, despite the fact that information obtained online is unfiltered and may be inaccurate, Chiang said.

Despite the "education" they receive from the Internet, a high percentage of respondents gave incorrect answers when asked about the human reproductive system, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual harassment and homosexuality, the news release said.

"Only 15 percent [of respondents] know that women can still have sex during pregnancy, while only 11 percent said that homosexuality is not a psychological disorder," Chiang said.

In addition, "a lot of them seek help from the Internet when they run into problems [with a relationship]," Chiang said.

The survey showed that 68 percent of respondents would look on the Web for help on relationships.

"The phenomenon is quite worrisome," Chiang said, adding that school and parents should shoulder the responsibility to provide children with accurate information.

The survey showed that although approximately 50 percent of the respondents' parents received higher education, 40 percent of them would not talk about sex with their children, Chiang said.

"It's natural that children become curious [about sex] as they grow up," she said. "But if parents don't talk about it and our education system doesn't teach them about it, then of course they look for help elsewhere."

In an attempt to resolve the issue, the center is planning to work with schools to set up sex education training courses for teachers and parents, Chiang said.
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