Situation 3 - Insufficient Education System

It is undeniable that baby dumping has been a growing concern among the society. Whether through mouth to mouth conversation to news broadcasted in every corner of the country, baby dumping had become the most pressing issue talked and debated among civilians and concerned parents. What had actually gone wrong? Is this the current social norm that we had subconsciously adopted, or that we simply wouldn’t care that such things are happening before our eyes, casting ignorant glances and pointing fingers at the other party?

Education, whether formal or informal, had become the source of knowledge and information in our daily life especially during our adolescence years. The lack of education is one of the majoring factors that contributed to the rise of this phenomenon. Students as young as secondary school are most susceptible to the curiosity of exploring the opposite sex. The lack of sex education does not help them in understanding the opposite sex when instead they would innocently adopt unprotected sex in their schooling days. This would lead to unwanted pregnancy and inexperience in handling this sort of situation. Consequently this would result in baby dumping.

Earlier this year, opinions and debates were brought up whether we should introduce sex education in school syllabus. However, parties involved in the debate had taken the stance and move on with the old syllabus, concerning that whether the conservative social norm would able to accept this kind of education being taught in schools. Aspects and areas of human body are rigidly and conservatively taught in biology without painting a clear picture of the consequences of unprotected sex to the students. Students knew that they should not be involved in sexual activities but they do not know how to cope with it should such unwanted cases happen. Without proper support and formal education, they would not know the correct way of managing their emotions and thus could result in baby dumping. Research from US showed that children as young as the age of 8 are the best years in knowing about sex and the opposite sex. This statement had opened a point of view whether sex education should be implemented in schools, perhaps breaking the barrier of the conservative mindset of the nation where such issue should be addressed openly.

Besides that, informal education where enforcement of sex education from parents and relatives are at utmost important in addressing this issue too. However, many cases occur where parents themselves are too embarrassed to talk about this topic to their own children. For instance, parents giving birth out-of wedlock would most probably be too embarrassed to talk about this issue to their children. Although they would never like their children to follow their footsteps, but the fear of bringing the same thing out is just too intense, leaving them untruthful information about sex and unwanted pregnancy. There are articles and survey done that, adolescents and teenagers learn about sex through pornography and exaggerated information about sexual intercourse through internet and obscene magazines. Hence, this would definitely lead to adolescents and teenagers having sex at a very young age and result in baby dumping when unwanted pregnancy happened.

To sum up everything, education whether it is informal or formal plays a vital role in educating adolescents and teenagers about sexual intercourse and most importantly the consequences of baby dumping. Cold hard facts are taught through biology, but students nowadays are lack of the moral approach of baby dumping, which I believe is only touched at the very surface. Education as well as counseling should be done more thoroughly and the emotional state of teenagers should not be neglected. In short, education plays an important role in forming the self-concepts and perspectives of adolescents about unprotected sexual intercourse and most importantly the consequences of baby dumping.