SEREMBAN: In an about-turn, teachers are now prepared to teach sex education in schools - but educationists want proper training first.

This was a drastic change from a stand taken on March 2 when the National Union of the Teaching Profession was against such an education.

NUTP had then said that teachers lacked formal training "in the complexity and sensitivity of the subject and were not confident to teach it".

Its secretary-general Lok Yim Pheng said the new decision was reached at a recent three-day delegates conference held here.

She added that teachers believed sex education should begin at early secondary education; and the educationists should be given comprehensive training first. "The ministry needs to come up with proper modules and programmes to allow us to impart this to students effectively," she said.

Lok added that teachers were concerned that they would become open targets for litigation from parents if they made mistakes when imparting such knowledge to students.

Many quarters, including parents, had urged the authorities to introduce sex education.

The NUTP has 160,000 members.

On a separate matter, Lok said the NUTP wanted headmasters to stop forcing teachers to return to school during weekends.

"We are supposed to be working a fiveday week but we agreed to return to schools on alternate Saturdays if there was good reason for it," she said.

"But some headmasters are forcing teachers to come back every Saturday. This is absurd," she said, adding that if this continued, the NUTP would direct its members to stick to a five-day work-week. Lok said the ministry should also stop compelling teachers from attending the annual seven-day in-service training as well.

She said such a training could be incorporated into any of the other courses.

"Although the Education Ministry has deferred the in-service training, we want it abolished," she said.

Lok said NUTP supported the decision to make sports compulsory in schools. "But teachers who are sports secretaries must not be required to teach as they already have too much to do."