Teachers in China Being Trained in Sex Education for the First Time

Teachers in China Being Trained in Sex Education for the First Time
Jul 09, 2018 By eChinacities.com

 

A small handful of teachers in China have been officially trained in sex education, meaning some youngsters will soon be learning the basics of “the birds and the bees” for the first time. Besides from some experimental lessons at a few schools in China’s most developed cities, the vast majority of young people in China have no formal sex education.


Image: The People Speak!

According to a CNN  report, however, a batch of teachers in China have been officially trained to give middle-school children sex education. The training courses, which include information for both adults and children, take the form of videos and summer schools. Topics being covered include sexual consent, sexual orientation and sexually transmitted diseases.

Fang Gang, a professor of psychology at Beijing Forestry University and the program initiator, said the courses will empower young people to have sex safely and responsibly.

"Empowerment sexuality education aims to help teenagers make their own choice about sex, which is a key part of a person's personal growth. It's actually an education of life," he said, adding that perspectives of gender, feminism and LGBT rights will also be explored. "It's not only about the sexual knowledge. We are teaching values," he said.

Since May more than 130 people have attended the training courses, with 70 becoming qualified as sex educators. Participants must take seven lessons with Fang and 52 hour-long online lessons before giving their own lectures for Fang to examine and improve.

Other than the basics of sexual reproduction learnt from biology textbooks, Chinese children typically have very little or no sexual education. This lack of knowledge is often blamed on the increasing rates of HIV infections among young people.

Although national HIV rates across all age sectors are low (less than 0.1 percent), an estimated 14.7 percent of new infections in 2015 were among people aged 15 to 24.

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Keywords: teachers in China

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