Yunnan education dept. denies abstinence taught in textbook

Officials from Yunnan Education Department denied a report that Yunnan has written abstention from sex before marriage into students' textbooks and claimed that the abstinence education is totally different from education of adolescents on Sept. 1.

Some media published a report saying that education about life, love and sex will become a required course in both universities and high schools as the new semester began. The texts in the course are from Focus on the Family, an American Evangelical Christian nonprofit organization.

As sex education and sex before marriage are still sensitive topics in China, the report has aroused wide concern and debates in society.

Some supporters feel that adolescent students are curious about sex. Providing this information will help to fulfill their curiosity. It is much safer to provide the related knowledge to them in the right way, they argue. However, still some others believe scientific and effective sex education is much better.

Officials from Yunnan Education Department said that they just held a seminar on how to develop sex education and how to borrow from foreign countries' experiences rather than to simply follow the ideas in the textbook written by Focus on the Family.

They also claimed that the two different concepts should not be confused. It's also impossible for the textbooks from Focus on the Family to become the formal textbook in universities and high schools of Yunnan.

By Wang Qianyuanxue, People's Daily Online