Some 6.2 per cent of senior middle school students in Beijing admitted they have had sex, the Beijing Morning Post Wednesday cited the result of a survey as saying.

Two middle school students kiss at a park in Beijing, May 23, 2006. [Newsphoto/file]

The average age for these students' first sexual experience is less than 16 years old, according to the survey of more than 2,300 senior middle school students in the Xuanwu District of the Chinese capital.

The result of the survey indicated the surveyed students' astonishing openness towards sex. Among the surveyed, only 15 per cent said they were against premarital sex and more than 50 per cent do not oppose one-night stands. In addition, only six of the 1,299 surveyed girls chose "definite objection" when asked about their attitude when their boy friends asked to have sex.

The survey found that only 40 per cent of those students who had had sex used contraceptive measures, resulting in an increasing number of abortions among teenage girls.

Li Yuan, head of girls' health department of the Xuanfu Women's Health Hospital, attributed this worrying trend to these girls' lack of sexual knowledge which can be blamed on inefficient sexual education both at school and at home.

Beijing currently has no textbooks specially designed for sex education and most sexual information is included in physiology textbooks, the Beijing Morning Post said.

"There is no systematic introduction and some sensitive contents are often skipped, " the report quoted Zong Chunshan, director of the Beijing Sexual Education Association, as saying.

The real difficulty in sex education lies in the misunderstanding and uneasiness of the educators, both the teachers and the parents, when talking about sex with teenagers, Zong said.

"The key to a successful sexual education is in the training of the teachers and parents," he said. .

The situation has aroused the attention of the educational authorities in the Chinese capital.

Beijing is planning to start a census of the sexual health of all the primary school and middle school students in the city. After the census Beijing would then formulate an outline for the sexual health of primary school and middle school students, the report said.

The outline is scheduled to lay out what kind of sexual knowledge each grade of students should learn about, for example, if middle school students need to know how to use condoms, the report said.

Zong even suggested starting sexual education when children enter kindergarten, instead of after they are enrolled in middle school when they become sexually sensitive.

Sex education should include sexual physiology, psychology, ethics and law. The educators can introduce basic body information, boys' and girls' roles and hygienic basics to kindergarteners.