The Malay proverb mencurah air ke daun keladi simply means a fruitless endeavour. With infinite sincerity, I hope the government, through the Education and Health Ministries respectively, is not consciously reflecting the saying in their plans of action.

It certainly is no exaggeration to say that the government's reaction to issues concerning sex education, HIV/Aids and safe sex is nothing short of a 'touch and go' approach.

There seems to be such negligible commitment on the part of various ministries to synergising and mobilising resources to take on these issues and discuss them with maturity.

A case in point is the Education Ministry's recent proposal for sex education to be taught in Form Three. The National Union of Teaching Profession countered this with a suggestion to tackle sex education at primary school instead.