THE EDITOR, Sir:

Giving out condoms in schools is like setting a bait for a fish or a rat. Not only that it will encourage sexual intercourse. It is not only a protection for safe sex, or to abstain from the lure of sex.

It's a go-ahead, an opening, a turn-on for the students to engage in early sex. Handing out condoms in schools, is like you are saying to the students: If you are overcome by passion, or faced with a strong, unbeatable sexual temptation where you may end up having sex then use the condom which is given to you.

Giving out condoms is carelessness being disguised for the wrong motives. The least opportunity some of these students get, they hide and have sex - because they have their condoms.

The condoms can burst, leaving a schoolgirl with an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually infected disease. What the students need is edifying books. They need a good dose of ethics; the ethical medicine - not condoms.

I am, etc.,

Donald Jefferson McKoy

Spanish Town