Sex is the natural that everyone know in the society.No one can’t avoid but it is when and how they learn. Fertility rate is the main factor for the development of the country. According to Banerjee and Duflo, high population growth rate leads to the slow economic development in the country. In Thailand, the traditional culture about sex is very uncommon. No child has been taught about sex and has no knowledge. Many adults said that teaching about sex for student is not suitable for our country(Boyle, 2018).This article will discuss why sex education is neccesarry and how to fix these problem in Thailand.
Beginning with the popular netflix series that their ratings is very high all around the world “Sex Education”. This series is about the sex and has been trending all around the world. There are Thai conservatives who protest for this series even though most people approved it. This is an example how Thai adults still being conservative about sex. For more information, according to the statistics in HIV, Thailand is one of the highest number of HIV people accounting for 9% of Asia Pacific(Avert, 2020). According to (CTN News, 2019), teenagers are one of the most seriously affected groups in Thailand with the increase in birth rate among teenagers even though overall birth rate has dropped. This shows the sign of lacking sex knowledge for children.Most teenagers still don’t know how to wear condom properly. For the development in Thailand, Thailand is still counted as a developing country due to many reasons including the lack of quality children. The average age of first sexual experience was very low in Thailand 2016 at 13.2 (Buarapan & Chaiwongroh, 2020) .Children have been left alone and been orphaned. Also the lack of access of pornographic site is one of the factor that lead to the increase of rape and sexual assualt in the country. One of the famous quote in Thailand about sex education is “When you have lust, go play football”. This shows how conservative Thailand has been for sex education.
Then, how can we solve this problem.Let’s know about the problem. According to bangkok post bad edu, there was a survey among secondary students and teachers in six provinces. Most teachers don’t receive proper training for this subject.For students, they feel shy and embarrassed to discuss in the class. Many teachers and parents thought that knowing more means more chance for having early sex, this is also the reason why they don’t want to provide much information. For student, they want to know more about sex education. Not only about sex but also the knowldege aboutgender, sexuality, diversity, fluidity(Boyle, 2018). To start a new era , the revolution is needed. Nakorn Santiyothin, the teacher at Suankularb who open the new era of teaching sex education in Thailand by opening the porn video in the class(Thairath, 2015). She said it is the time to change and adapt to the new culture that comes along with the new generation. During the first period of change, many conservator are against about the revolution, however Nakorn has survive that period and has been the idol for many teachers in Thailand for the new method of sex education in Thailand.
In conclusion, sex education is the long-lasting problem in Thailand. Unaccesible of sex education is the main factor that cause the unsustainable development to the country. With the traditional culture in Thailand about gender, diversity and heterogenous, Thailand still has not found the way to create the proper education for children to be able to protect and know themselves to survive in society. It is interesting to see how sex education will be in the future with the big sign of incoming revolution.
References:
Avert. (2020, August 7). HIV AND AIDS IN THAILAND. Retrieved from https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/asia-pacific/thailand
Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E. (2011). Poor economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty.
Boyle, G. (2019, February 15). Let’s talk about sex. Bangkok Post. Retrieved from https://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-entertainment/1629739/lets-talk-about-sex
Buaraphan, K., & Chaiwongroj, C. (2020, February 15). Development and effectiveness assessment of a sex education learning unit for Thai primary students. Retrieved from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JHR-02-2019-0039/full/html#sec001
CTN News. (2019, October 11). Thailand Has Taken to the Radio to Promote Sex Education. Chiang Rai Times. Retrieved from https://www.chiangraitimes.com/lifestyles/thailand-has-taken-to-the-radio-to-promote-sex-education/
Thairath. (2015, January 16). ฉีกขนบ! แม่พิมพ์ฮาร์ดคอร์ เปิดใจ ‘อาจารย์นคร’ ฉายหนังโป๊สอนในห้องเรียน!. Retrieved from https://www.thairath.co.th/lifestyle/woman/474731
I do agree with you that sex education should be taught since young. This would help prevent any chance of young pregnancy or unwanted pregnancy. As you mention that high fertility rate led to slowdown in development in the country and why should we be wasting resources on unnecessary that happen because of the lack of education about sex. Thailand should break the conservative norm about sex as something private and kept away from the young adults. The more you kept it away from them, the more they want to know and they will try by themselves which could lead to unnecessary increase in population.