Sex education in Vietnam

          In recent years, the abortion rate in Vietnam has been rising and be always in top of the highest rate in the world. About 1.4 million abortions are performed annually in Vietnam, which has a population of 88 million. The high rate of induced abortion is an alarming issue, indicates that the managers of health and family planning programs have not good quality, especially in education for teenagers. Vietnamese teenagers lack of knowledge about sexual behavior and reproductive health… There are many reasons for that, but I think three main ones are people awareness, school education and teenager’s behaviors.

 

Vietnam is a traditional country so that people are afraid of talking about sex. When we live in a society that all the people want to hide that problem, you are not an exception. It’s the reason why media or schools do not have any sex education programs. Instead of thinking that sex is a bad thing, people should be open-minded, especially parents. A lot of teenagers said their moms and dads are reluctant to discuss such a delicate problem so they feel discouraged to ask questions. They are not willing to talk about sex because they think that their children are not mature enough to understand. Nowadays, more and more parents hardly spend their time on sharing with their kids.

However, they need to know that family is an ideal environment to educate children in their developing period. Children can share difficulties as well as questions in their lives with their parents because they are the closest friends to their children. Besides parents’ responsibilities, the school education plays an important role to educate teenagers. It is not only because they spend a lot of time in schools but also their peers and teachers influence them a lot on awareness. Many teenagers cannot share their feelings with parents but they can tell it to their friends, but sometimes it is not a wise advice. They don’t have real experience in life and think in a simple way, so that adult’s care is really important.


Teachers must be the people who teach them knowledge and care about their thoughts to help them immediately. Sex education is still limited in schools and the lessons about sex are unusual in some classes. Schools lack of sex education programs, psychologist and sex educator seriously. I think Viet Nam should insert sex education into schools so that students can broaden their knowledge as well as understand clearly about sex.

Then, they can avoid some complicated problems that occur in their lives. Conversely, a survey done about some countries in Asia shows that they are eager for sex education, so they have different methods to educate about sex. For instance, Indonesia and Korea apply sex education in schools through books or workshops. Besides, in Japan, sex education is compulsory for children from 10 to 11 years old. Those are some differences between sex education in Viet Nam and other countries.




 Vietnam is integrating with other countries, aside from some positive aspects there are many negative aspects such as free lifestyles and liberal thoughts from other countries that affect to young people seriously. That’s one of reason why they are usually curious about new things, especially sex. It’s a sensitive issue in their society and people feel uncomfortable and seem hiding it from them, so they want to know it clearly. The only way they can find out the answers is through Internet, books, magazines and even peers. They are from many different sources so it can make the young confused, frightening and mislead them in selecting this information and choosing which one is suitable for them. Moreover, at this age, they want to discover, prove themselves and imitate adults.

Some teenagers make love with their partner without condom and lead bad consequences such as: diseases or unexpected pregnancies… They do not have enough knowledge to protect themselves. In foreign countries, the young can actively prevent them because condoms are freely available. Obviously, young Vietnamese people need a better understanding of sexual health and theirs rights in order to ensure safer sex and a higher quality of life.






 In conclusion, sex education is important, urgent and essential for children nowadays. Instead of avoiding this sensitive and complicated problem, open and respectful discussions of sexual matters could encourage healthy attitudes surrounding sexuality and positive relationships. The government must care more about adding sex education in media, schools system as well as families to raise people awareness about healthy sex. Sex education must be supported enthusiastically to help children form attitudes, beliefs and values about identity, relationships and intimacy. Healthy people, healthy society, definitely Vietnam can reduce abortion rates, HIV AIDS, as well as many social evils. I believe in a better future for young generations if we put sex education into action right way.