As part of a nationwide initiative, sex education will be provided to Thai students as part of a program to reduce the number of teenage mothers.
The program, following the Prevention and Solution of the Adolescent Pregnancy Problem Act to be enforced next month, aims to provide both teachers and students with sex education and pregnancy rights.
The Act also aims to ensure that every female student has equal rights to study whether they are pregnant or not.
According to the Ministry of Education’s Permanent Secretary Kamchorn Tatiyakawee, teen mothers futures must not be restricted or defined by pregnancy.
He believes schools in Thailand must come to the understanding that pregnant girls cannot be pushed out of school or prevented from re-entering after they have had a baby. Reportedly, this has happened regularly in the past.
To bring about this change, sex education specialists, with instruction from the Ministry of Education, will be providing school administrators and teachers with lessons in sex education, reported Bangkok Post.
They will, in turn, teach the students.
Permanent Secretary Kamchorn was reported to have said that a large number of teachers still view the topic of sex as taboo as they believe sex education will influence young students to engage in more sex. “We need to change their attitude to reduce the problems,” he concluded.
Factor such as teacher and parent avoidance of sex education is responsible for the huge number of teen pregnancy, said the Coordinator of the Women’s Health Advocacy Foundation, Jittima Phanutecha.
According to the group’s research, over 80 percent of teen parents lack proper knowledge on the usage of contraceptives. Jittima believes this reflects how inadequate sex education is in Thailand.
For the number of teen pregnancies, Thailand ranked fifth in Southeast Asia and 15th in Asia with an average rate of 52 pregnancies for every 1000 females between the age of 15 to 19.
According to the Ministry of Public Health, pregnancy rates are even higher at 75 in Bangkok. The average in the world was reported to be 50.
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