Sexual education, or AIDS prevention?
However, despite bashfulness over the topic, official concern over the spread of AIDS eventually led to the passing of greater legislation mandating the teaching of sexual education, with the 1990 AIDS Control and Prevention Plan of the People's Republic of China representing the first plan to specifically mandate sexual education among China's young people. Because concern over the disease's spread became the primary motivation for sexual education, programs became rooted in government AIDS prevention programs and, in keeping with the teaching methods of such programs, adopted condom distribution and education as their primary activity.
As Jing Wei notes, Chinese Centers for Disease Control (CDC) efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS among party officials and at-risk populations generally consist of condom distribution, education, and little else. And, while universities frequently teach courses on sexual education and install condom dispensing machines on their premises, middle and high schools frequently lack the funds to do so, depending instead on funds from foreign charities such as the Gates or Ford foundations for such programs.
A false sense of security
Reliance on condom education has also led to controversy as to whether or not sex education centered around contraceptive use represent the best or most prudent means of preventing AIDS transmission. For example, Zhu Qi, former Assistant Director General at the China Sexuality Institute, argues that although condoms are generally effective at preventing AIDS transmission, they are not 100% effective and their promotion as a means of preventing AIDS can lead to a false sense of security accompanied by an increase in risky behavior. Moreover, he notes that although foreign NGOs frequently recommend condom-based sexual education as an effective means of preventing AIDS transmission, their recommendations may not necessarily be appropriate for China itself, noting that they are usually based on assumptions of sexual activity much higher than China's. Thus, Zhu Qi favors sexual education based on the teaching of moral values such as chastity as a more effective means of teaching sexual education.
However, other experts disagree. Jing Wei, for example, feels that while condoms should not represent the sole topic covered by sexual education, they are nonetheless an indispensible aspect of such educational programs. According to Jing, efforts at chastity-based sex education are a kind of "ostrich policy" (a reference to the story of the ostrich hiding its head in the sand when faced by predators) and she notes that in her own daughter's school many students have dating relationships with members of the opposite sex. Jing Wei even went so far as to teach her own daughter how to use a condom after finding that no such education was provided at the girl's school.
However, despite such controversy, it seems clear that if sexual education of any sort is to become more common, it will require greater acceptance among China's leaders. Its implementation remains spotty and Yu Chengmou, one of the teachers responsible for implementing Beijing's 1982 pilot program, notes that the success of such programs depends to a great extent on how much school leaders value them: "If leaders don't think [sex education programs] are important, it's very difficult for them to develop." Thus, it seems likely that if China's sexual education is to flourish its leaders may require a bit of sex ed themselves.
