The reproductive health and social education module will be introduced in the National Service Training Programme in May.
Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the module was approved by the National Service Training Council last week and would be implemented, starting with the second batch of trainees this year.
“However, I would like to remind parents that this is not sex education. This is an introduction module that exposes them to common problems experienced by teenagers,” he said.
He was speaking to reporters after flagging off the first batch of trainees for the year at the National Service Training Programme Department’s headquarters at Bangunan Zetro in Wangsa Maju on Sunday.
He hoped the module would expose them to subjects that were taught in schools.
National Service Training Department director-general Datuk Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil, who was also present at the event, said they have until April to research and draft the module, and to train instructors.
“We have to ensure that the module does not overlap with the contents of other current modules,” he said.
He added JKLN would coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies, including the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, in drafting the module to ensure all needs and sensitivities of different race, culture and religion were taken into consideration.
“We are confident that this module will help curb social problems, such as baby dumping, faced by teenagers today,” said Hadi.
On the number of NS trainees this year, Abdul Hadi said 140,000 trainees were picked out of more than 500,000 teenagers born in 1993.
From Sunday to Tuesday, 40,308 trainees will leave their homes and head to 79 NS camps nationwide for three-months training. Meanwhile, in Kuching, National Service Training Council Chairman Datuk Dr Tiki Lafe said the government would not make it mandatory for NS female trainees to take a pregnancy test despite some past cases of trainees suffering from miscarriages and delivering babies in the camps.
He said that making the test mandatory would go against individual rights and also create social stigma and embarrassment.
“We don’t want to make it (pregnancy test) mandatory because this goes against the individual rights.
"We’ve discussed this at length in our council meetings and concluded it would not be fair to make them go for the test,” he told a press conference here after launching the first batch of NS trainees for this year.
“I don’t have the statistics but we can safely say that in one NS cycle, there will be at least one case and one is enough to create an issue,” he said.
Dr Tiki said the council would not bar these youths from coming back to training if they wanted to in future.
“If we detect early, then we send these trainees back to deal with the pregnancy and after they have settled things back home and want to return, they can do so,” he added.
Nevertheless, he appealed to all trainees to take pregnancy tests on their own if they suspect they were pregnant.
This year alone, an 18-year-old NS trainee gave birth to a healthy baby boy in a toilet at Camp Ovai in Papar in Sabah.
The birth was discovered by fellow trainees who heard the infant crying.
Following the incident, there had been calls for the NS authorities to consider making it mandatory for all female trainees to undergo a pregnancy test.
Source: The Star Online, 1st January 2011