Finally, sex education for our school kids.

I read with great interest that Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil has finalised a proposal for the inclusion of sex education into our school syllabus to the Education Ministry for approval, adding that she hoped that it can be introduced as early as next year.(!)

Can it be true? I am especially glad someone has finally been brave enough to acknowledge that our nation's young are in dire need of serious sex education in view of the many cases of unwed teenage mothers, abandoned babies, infanticide and rise in sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS, and that one way to tackle this problem is to educate these kids while they are still in school.

I am hopeful that both ministries will work together to come up with a really good and honest syllabus so as to make the whole sex education subject truly informative and useful. Let's not make the mistake of skirting around the topics that seriously need to be openly discussed, lest it makes a mockery of the subject itself. This being the 21st century and the age of the internet, our kids do need to know more facts and if we fail to provide them with correct information, you can bet the curious ones will find a way to know more, often with dire consequences.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one.