Kunsill Studenti Junior College

The controversy about sex and contraception seems to be endless. The University, our politicians, the Curch and our students organizations are busily discussing one of the main issue that up to now are still considered as a taboo.

Surprisingly enough, little or nothing at all is this issue being discussed among the people who are mostly involved in this matter. The reason is that nowadays teenagers usually starts going through their first sexual experiences between sixteen and seventeen years of age, the average age of students attending the Junior College.

Up to now the Junior College students seem to be in a vacuum on this issue. Not that students are abstaining from having sex. Apparently they prefer to do what they like, irrespective of what others (especially their parents!) are saying. Even without generalizing, one may consider the present status quo quite shocking. Regular letters on the local newspapers and continuous hype on our media are making our youth appear as they only care for sex. The distribution of condoms at University may also have contributed to the mentality that having sex is the student’s top priority.

However this does not put away the importance of sexual education and awareness. Even if Malta still lacks a national sexual health policy, our society needs to engage on certain urgent campaigns in order to prevent this situation from going worse. We surely shouldn’t alarm ourselves but we neither can ignore the increasing occurances of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD’s) and teenage pregnancies. It is almost impossible to try to persuade youths to avoid having sex, therefore we need to promote a more responsible attitude in order to maintain safer sex.

Unfortunately contraceptions in Malta are either seen as something evil or else as something to make fun of. The reality is that contraceptions can help us take good care of our health as well as prevent us from specific situations which normally sixteen and seventeen year-olds are not prepared to. Whereas in foreign education institutions safe sex is promoted freely and health advisors are invited to raise awareness about this important topics, Malta is still studying the need of integrating sexual education into our course of studies. Education is not only the best way how we can persuade the younger generations of the importance of sexual responsability, but also how precautions could make our sexual relationships more enjoyable and healthier. A good sexual education campaign should also tackle the importance of sexual orientation in oder to obtain greater maturity among students.

Condoms are considered as one of the cheapest ways how one can prevent diseases and also unwanted pregnancies. However these also have to be used with special precautions as there may be certain circumstanstances in which condoms might be uneffective. One cannot put his mind to rest because he or she is just using contrceptions, teenagers need primarily to focus onto what they look for when having sex and most importantly how they treat their sexual partner.

Students believe that sex and sexuality should no longer be treated as hot potatoes but as important matters that they need to discuss openly and without any unwated discriminatory judgements or stereotypes. Our education system should respect this crucial fact and by bearing these principles in mind could we finally achieve mature younger generations!