Chinese university students say they do not receive comprehensive sex education, and mostly learn about sexual reproduction from newspapers, magazines, the Internet and friends. [Newsphoto/file]

Yang Yang sits in the hospital corridor with her school bag on her lap. She is waiting for the results of pregnancy test. Next to the 17-year-old high school senior is her boyfriend Li Jun who is also 17 years old. He is tossing a bottle of mineral water around like a football.

About 15 minutes later, the test results arrive. She is pregnant.

These teenage lovers don't look the least bit troubled.

"Gee, we could all go to school together," the boy quipped, nodding at Yang Yang's tummy.

"Get lost!" Yang pushed Li gaily. "I don't want it. It will make me fat and ugly."

"OK, I don't care. Let's go somewhere and have some fun," the boy said. The two giggle all the way to the door.

A hospital gynecologist said almost all adolescents involved in early pregnancies, boys and girls alike, know little about how to avoid unintended pregnancy or what it means to their future lives.

Lack of education and awareness about sex has caused a sharp rise in unwanted pregnancies and in some provinces teenage abortions have more than doubled.

Statistics released by the Family Planning Research Institute of Chongqing Municipality in Southwest China show teenage abortion cases have jumped to 33.6 per cent in 2004, up from 13 per cent in 1998.

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The results of a sample survey early this year on the awareness of reproductive health among students at four universities in Beijing were equally alarming, the Health News has reported.

Of 6,000 surveyed students, 80 per cent had only a vague idea about sexual reproduction. Only 5 per cent said they had received sex education in a classroom.

More than 90 per cent of students said they learnt about sex from newspapers, magazines, the Internet, or from their peers.

All the students surveyed agreed they needed a wider range of knowledge about reproductive health, covering sexual psychology, sexual morality, contraceptives, and sexually transmitted disease prevention.

Health experts say sex education is desperately needed in Chinese classrooms, where such lessons are largely non-existent at present.

"Teachers take sex education as a physiology or medical course so that they normally tell students where and what male and female genitalia are, instead of discussing how to be a man or woman, and how to avoid pregnancy," said sociologist Li Dun.

Figures from the National Statistics Bureau suggest that in 2004 the country had 327 million people aged 10 to 24, accounting for 26 per cent of the total population. The average age for Chinese teenagers reaching puberty is 12-13. In other words, there are 20 million boys and girls who reach their physical sexual maturity every year.

Traditional values still have an effect on girls in China.

Liu Yulian explains the human reproductive system to her students at the Guodian Township Middle School of Jining, East China's Shandong Province. [Newsphoto/file]

"Many girls subconsciously believe that whoever knows more about sex is morally loose," said Sun Yunxiao, deputy director of China Juvenile Development Research Centre.

The ubiquitous ads for painless abortion also have a bad influence on young people. Many believed abortion was an easy answer. Teenage girls were not worried about becoming pregnant, and teenage boys failed to be responsible for their actions.

In addition to government's commitment, "a prudential policy and a complete system for the development of sex education are necessary, if we want to curb adolescent pregnancy fundamentally," said Sun.

Provincial governments are taking action and the mayors of 10 major cities have signed special documents to address adolescent pregnancy.

Along with their counterparts from 54 cities around the world, the mayors of Shanghai, Chongqing and Suzhou have put their signatures on the Suzhou Proclamation, demonstrating their resolve to fight such problems and diseases as HIV/AIDS, alcohol and tobacco abuse, and teenage pregnancy, which jeopardize the quality of life for young people in urban communities.

The signing occurred at the Second General Assembly & Conference of the Alliance for Healthy Cities held on October in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province.

A little girl is attracted by the plastic models of babies in the womb in a show to promote sex education held in Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province in September. [Newsphoto/file]

Sociologist Li Dun with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences noted: "This is a positive move, showing that city governments are changing, from turning a blind eye to teenage pregnancy, to confronting the problem in vulnerable social groups."

The problem presents not only a menace to teenagers' health, but also to urban public health at large. "The tendency of sex liberation together with our failing sex education is escalating premarital pregnancy into a modern urban public health problem in China," said Li.

Pregnant adolescents often suffer from psychological problems.

According to an ongoing research project on the psychology and social ability of pregnant teenagers, conducted by the Maternity & Children Care Hospital of Xuanwu District in Beijing, most of the girls in this group already have problems with self-esteem, self-confidence and self-consciousness.

"This group of young women tend to be compliant to any demand from their teenage boy friends. And their knowledge of contraception and reproduction health is almost nil," said Li Yuan, a doctor responsible for the adolescent consulting clinic at the hospital.