Sex is no longer taboo for China's primary school students. A primary school in Kunming, capital city of Yunnan Province in southern China, has launched a sex education class for sixth-graders, a local newspaper reports.

 

Xinhuoxinbao newspaper says that the sex education is the first of its kind in Yunnan Province and is being conducted on a trial basis.

 

The class is similar to physiology classes offered to Chinese high school students. The headmaster of Qiaoguang Primary School explains that as children become more precocious, the school intends to provide students with the right guidance about sex at an early age.

 

One of the teachers of the class, Zhang Yi, said the class provides mental guidance about sex for students with classroom interaction, together with extracurricular activities.

 

Students at Qiaoguang Primary School seem to like the class. Before the class started, a survey conducted at the school showed students are interested in sex-related questions. When the class first started, Zhang Yi said, most of the students blushed, but they were soon relieved and brave enough to raise questions.

 

However, not all the parents support this initiation. Some parents sampled by the newspaper thought school education is the best way to solve children's questions about sex, while some other parents insisted that primary school students are too young for sex education and should focus on studying other subjects.

 

An associate professor at Yunnan Normal University, Shi Zhenli, said the education pattern will be promoted to all of Kunming and even the whole province if it proves to be successful.

 

(CRI January 24, 2007)