How do you teach children about the birds and the bees in the digital age? Touchscreens mounted on the walls of the Family Planning Association's mobile classroom point to changing approaches. Housed in a converted truck, the facility is now equipped with tablet PCs and gaming devices instead of shelves of books and videos.
'Turgid texts are being replaced by interactive video games and animation about how babies are conceived in the womb,' says the FPA's education manager, Grace Lee Ming-ying.
When the mobile classroom visited a school recently, students tried out an animated programme that showed their physical transformation as they got older. The youngsters first personalised their avatar, choosing their outfits from an extensive catalogue, and then tracked their cartoon image as it matured from toddler to teenager. For a boy, it would show stubble starting to sprout on his chin and the Adam's apple appearing on his throat.
Sex remains an awkward subject for most local parents and schools. Many families avoid discussion altogether and leave to teachers the responsibility of inculcating youngsters with a healthy attitude to sex. All too often schools simply advocate abstinence or adopt a clinical approach that leaves teenagers none the wiser.
In recent years, however, a handful of colleges and community groups have been chipping away at hidebound ways. Spurred by evolving social mores and the reach of new media, they are engaging students with open and creative ways to learn about intimacy, self-respect and responsibility.
At Kau Yan College in Tai Po, guidance teacher Cheng Ying-ha and her colleagues are sweeping aside old taboos.
'In the past, we would not demonstrate use of condoms, for instance. But such conservative ways will backfire nowadays given more liberal social attitudes and mass media with a penchant for salacious reporting. If students don't have access to sex information at school, they just go to the net, which is filled with spurious content.'