TO learn how to protect oneself from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), one must first start with the basics, which is sexual education.
Unfortunately, it was recently revealed that a total of 913 teenagers, some as young as 13 have tested positive for STDs, from 2018 to 2022. These shocking figures were released by our Education Minister, Fadhlina Sidek at parliament on Oct 30 in a written response to Kapar MP Hajar Halimah Ali.
“Based on notifications from the Health Ministry, there were 255 cases of STDs among 13 to 17-year-olds in 2018 while 225 cases were recorded in 2019.
“A total of 191 STDs cases were recorded in 2020, 96 cases in 2021, and 146 cases in 2022.”
Fadhlina added that the most common STDs found were syphilis, gonorrhoea, chancroid, and HIV.
Three per cent of these teenagers tested positive for drugs via urine tests in 2019, but this figure dropped to 2.16 per cent in 2020. And due to home-based learning, no urine tests were performed in 2021.
Meanwhile, in 2022, 1.18 per cent of students tested positive for drugs, and the figure is now 0.64 per cent as of September this year. The Education Ministry and the National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK) conducted all of the tests.
According to data from the Student Discipline System (SSDM), Fadhlina also noted a steady decrease in bullying, truancy, smoking, obscene behaviour, and mischief.
On a good note, school dropout rates have decreased over a five-year period from 2018 to 2022, falling from 1.21% in 2018 to 0.99% in 2022.
