Tambon Nong Trood Administration Organisation (OrBorTor) chief Sombat Polprayurn said the programme is consonant with current state policy: "Government policy aims at preventing and solving the problem of pregnancy in children and teens who are not ready," he explained.
"Today this is an issue in which society is greatly interested, and a problem continually doubling in intensity - one that must have fundamental impact on how children and youth are reared in this country."
Sombat noted that the birth rate for girls aged 15 - 19 in Thailand stood at 17.9 per cent in 2007. "In 2001, the figure was 10.37 per cent," he said. "The rate for Asia is 56 per thousand (5.6 per cent)."
"With regard to Trang Province, the birth rate for girls aged under 20 was 12.63 per cent in 2005; in 2011, it rose to 16.3 per cent. The youngest mother was only ten years old." Sombat said Trang had the highest rate among the seven provinces in Lower Southern Thailand.
"We considered the importance of children and youth in tambon Nong Trood, and so decided to undertake the 'Boys and Girls Progress Beautifully Through Chastity Programme'." He said its purpose was to build awareness of the teenage pregnancy problem and to make "children and youth realise the value and morality of sex, and to realise the value of a correct love-life."
He said the goal was to have 60 boys and girls of "approximately the same type" in the programme. "Children and youth will thereby know the means of preventing pregnancy," he said, "and the problem of pregnancy among those below the proper age will decrease."
Echoing Nietzsche, Sombat thinks participants will thus be enabled to become "a force for change producing in this nation a new generation of quality."
To operate the programme, the tambon appointed a committee to assemble information relevant to someday solving the problem of teen pregnancy. "It appears children and youth in tambon Nong Trood are beginning to understand what it means to have an appropriate love-life," Sombat averred, "and not to become pregnant before ready - the result of which is ensuing social problems."
No statistics to support the OrBorTor chief's assertion regarding the programme's effectiveness were reported.
The birth rate in Thailand as a whole, it should be noted, is 1.5 per female, a rate 25 per cent lower than that necessary for replacement of the existing stock - one which, if perpetuated, must end in the extinction of the race.