Beijing has taken a timely action in offering compulsory HIV/AIDS prevention education. Chinese society needs the wisdom and innovative spirit shown in this campaign. This is a farsighted and responsible action for the future. China lags years behind developed countries in terms of sex education and HIV/AIDS prevention education. We need to understand that victims of the ongoing resistance to sex education in middle schools are the adolescents, not the adults.

Lin Yi (sina.com.cn): We should not misread sexual education as encouraging students to go out and have sex, but rather as a way to protect students against potential physical and psychological harm. Psycholo-gically speaking, students in middle schools are still young and are unable to control their own emotions or behaviors. There is ample evidence that young students have sex because they cannot curb their sexual impulse. Without proper knowledge of what they are doing, serious results may arise.

Condoms not only help to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, but they are also helpful as a form of contraception. We have already seen young students having abortions, something that may have been prevented had they been better educated about sex.

With the countless distractions in the modern world, knowledge is the best way for young people to protect themselves.

Wu Zuolai (Beijing News): Traditional Chinese sexual values regard sex as taboo, and virginity is believed to be even more important than life itself. As a result, on one hand, in China girls and boys are always estranged from each other and shy to mix; while on the other hand, due to the lack of sex education, children growing up in a vacuum are curious about this subject.

Curiosity prompts them to learn more about sex through the Internet or other channels, which more often than not results in unhealthy or incorrect sexual knowledge and poor moral values. Students' sexual instincts may also induce them to make irrational decisions leading to irreversible mistakes.

In terms of sex education, traditional values and concepts may be right to some extent, but the future of our young people also matters a lot. Unlike the generations 10 or 20 years ago, the young students nowadays have much more emotional experience and sexual knowledge. Through open sex education, their confusion about sex may be gradually removed and they can learn that a correct attitude toward sex can contribute to a healthy and happy life, while improper behavior may result in disasters for themselves and others.

Textbook on sex education unacceptable

Gao Zhenqian (hlj.rednet.com): As a way to persuade students to choose a healthy lifestyle, it may be of some help to offer detailed information about HIV/AIDS, but it seems improper to instruct them on condom use, as this is a sensitive topic to adults, let alone middle school students.

Having learned how to use condoms, will the children then have a practical demonstration as they always do in chemistry or physics classes? Driven by their curiosity and strong instinctive sexual desire, if there is no education on sexual morality, students are unlikely to control their own behavior. Besides, having learned that a condom can remove the fear of unexpected pregnancy, AIDS and venereal diseases, they may be more apt to experiment. Therefore, the current sex education may increase the risk of sex among young students.

There are examples that show condom instructions from textbooks cause first-time sex among children to take place much earlier. Sweden is the world's first country to offer compulsory sex education in middle schools in 1956. As a result, pregnancies in young girls increased by 60 percent from 1960 to 1965, accompanied by a growth in venereal disease patients. During the same period, the average age for the young to have their first sexual encounter dropped from 18-19 to 16. Nowadays, almost 100 percent of the young aged above 16 are sexually active, while 50 percent of all babies are illegitimate.

In China, sexual behavior among middle school students is not a common phenomenon. It seems too early to provide them with instructions on proper condom use. Besides, in the information age students may get relevant knowledge through many channels, making compulsory sex education unnecessary. On this issue, I think reading fine works of literature may do more to help students develop the correct attitude toward love and sexual morality.