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Prof. Chen Shouliang: Current Chinese
College Students‘ Sexual-education
Unsatisfactory
PKU NEWS 2010--04—19
http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=270408855
Peking University, Beijing, Apr. 19, 2010: On March 29, Prof. Chen Shouliang, the
well-known biology professor from the School of Life Sciences at Peking University,
pointed out during his lecture at PKU that the current condition of the Chinese
college students‘ sexual-education is far from being satisfactory. He said: ―As far as I
know, there is not one college in Beijing which has opened this kind of
sexual-education classes, including my alma mater–Tsinghua University.‖ He
expressed that the recent atmosphere of the society is not good enough that people
generally treat sex as a taboo. He hoped that PKU‘s public elective course of
―Human Reproduction and Sexual Health‖ could inspire other colleges to provide this
kind of course.
When talking about the reasons for opening this course at PKU, Chen told us that the
sexual-education was a forbiddance for the youth when he was young. He thought
he was lucky enough to read the book of ―Sexual Psychology‖ translated by Mr. Pan
Guangdan in 1947. Before his retirement, Chen decided to fight for the opening of
this course to give the correct understanding about sex to the youth for their health.
However, it is a pity that few teachers are willing to give lessons in the course.
Chen graduated from the Department of Biology of PKU, and has taught the courses
of ―Animal Physiology‖ and ―Human Biology‖. In 1995, he opened the public elective
course of ―Human Reproduction and Sexual Health‖ at PKU for the first time, and
wrote the first teaching book for sexual-education–―Human Sex, Generation, and
Health‖ by himself, in order to give scientific knowledge about sex to the PKU
undergraduates. Since 1995, the course has developed very fast that it has become
a public elective course. According to the students, the course is so popular that
more than 500 students choose this course every semester.
Due to the special cultural traditions and the political policies at specific historical
periods in China, the topic of sex has become such a taboo that both families and
schools have treated sexual-education with negative attitudes. At home, most
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