Importance of Sex Education in Schools

For a very long time, the issue of sex education for young people, particularly in the Indian region but not exclusively so has remained a taboo. Although sex is a natural developmental process, many parents, cultures and societies frown at discussing sex with their adolescent children because it is perceived as a generational taboo.

With out  destroying the fabric of society, it is necessary to teach the teenagers the importance of sex education .Having sex is a primitive, intrinsic natural human tendency that emerges in all of us in different forms and at different times. One thing is certain: if we don’t educate our children on sex and sex-related issues, they would learn from other people or the mass media. Sex education is not only important as a developmental process in the life of a child, it arms the child with the tools to understand him or herself better in relation to the immediate environment and the threats that could emerge from such interaction. Sex education provides young people with the information they need to understand their bodies and gender roles in positive ways. It is about better understanding of humanity, our reproductive rights and developmental changes such as puberty, menopause, aging, that could be experienced in the course of one’s reproductive life.
Humans are curious animals and young people are exploratory as an expression of their intrinsic curiosity. Peer pressure and the media have enormous influence in the lives of the so called generation Y, and if we don’t teach them about sex, somehow they would learn and maybe learn in a way that may have devastating consequences. Some elements of the mass media - television, radio, magazines - are biased, ill informed and may not portray accurate reflection of reality. Sex education will serve as counter-insurgency to the war that has been declared against family values by mass media. Children are more likely to make better and more informed decisions when adequately educated, and parents will feel more confident knowing that their children are aware of the realities around their reproductive lives. Although most parents work hard to prevent their children from premature sexual relationships, the reality is that it still happens and could happen in spite of threats and intimidation. Educating the child on the importance of protection as part of safe sex routine may serve a higher purpose of preventing sexually transmitted infections.
There are a number of reasons why parents are reluctant to teach their children about sex. Prominent amongst the reason for families frowning at sex education include but not limited to the preservation of virginity, prevention of premarital sex, illegitimate pregnancy and abortion, religion and culture, as well as maintenance of family honor and dignity. Contrary to this assumption, a number of surveys have shown that girls who were not educated about sexuality, including changes during puberty are more likely to embark on sexual indiscretion and become pregnant in their teenage years than those who were educated about sex. Knowledge, they say is power, and this power when bestowed on adolescents could be the difference between an irrational decision and a well informed one.
Sex education should ideally start in the home where parents should engage their children as active participants in their development process. This education continues at school in a way that preserves the family values while embracing societal realities. Sex education that begins at school could have an untoward effect of these young children not understanding the position of their parents, leading to sexual licentiousness and catastrophic experimentation. The result is that these individuals may become pregnant or contract infectious diseases, and may never regain the will or opportunity to achieve their greatest potential. The social development of young people is a product of family and society partnership, where these children are active participants in their own lives. 

The debate continues in the western nations whether sexual education should at all be taught to young people and who as well as when should this ideally commence.

In India, to be specific, usually we say that teenage is from 13 to 19 years, but in my view it has come down to 9 years. Today's generation has become so fast and tech-savvy that kids have very easy access to porn sites and other filthy material with one click. At this age the curiosity to know more is natural.
Various Bollywood celebrities are coming forward with the help of art to support sex education in schools. One of the hot names now a days in Poonam Pandey. While others are always treating her wrong for unnecessarily raging the issue of sex education, I see it as a positive sign because we Indians on one hand say that sex education should not be taught , on the other hand , we always do that task which is treated wrong generally. Every thing happens every where behind the scenes. Sex is treated as a nightmare and a very big object to understand. Every thing has a positive and negative point of view. Poonam Pandey has come with her new movie 'Nasha' , there are others too like 'Murder', 'Jism' and many more. The positive side of these movies are their educational side.. We need to understand that these kind of movies are made so that people can get more and more about sex education and do not treat it as a nightmare.
 There is a staggering statistics that 25% of all girls and 16% of all boys will be victims of some type of sexual abuse or assault by the time they turn 18 years.
Children of the 21st century need more education on their bodies and body imagery, reproductive rights and birth control, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual abuse and high-risk sexual behaviors and other exploitative behaviors.
http://www.debate.org hosted a survey in which it was surveyed whether children should be given sex education in schools or not?..Here are the results.

You can analyse yourself after noticing the survey results. Time has come to wake up from the deep sleep and tell your kids about sex education.Until the society, both in advanced and developing nations make sex education a common public discourse and encourage families to embrace the idea, sexual abuse and exploitation will remain a common threat to our children. There are sexual perpetrators everywhere one turns, from big cities to small country towns. Taking a collective stand and educating our children on sex and related matters will go a long way in preventing some of the tragic exploitative sexual experiences that harm our children and threaten their humanity.

--refrences taken from http://www.tigweb.org. only for educational and informative purposes.