KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysian schools will start holding sex education classes next year, an official said Thursday, as part of efforts to curb unwanted pregnancies among young teenagers.

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Deputy Education Minister Wee Ka Siong said male and female students in this Muslim-majority country will start with very basic weekly classes in the first grade. Eventually students will learn about menstrual cycles, sexually transmitted diseases and family planning.

"The most important is to create awareness and how to have self-protection. The young are exposed to all kinds of threats, especially when they go to a party," Wee told The Associated Press.

Malaysia's Cabinet approved guidelines to teach sex education in schools in 2006, but they were not fully implemented. Activists say school children just learn basic facts about reproduction during science courses.

But calls for classes have risen in recent months amid concerns about infants left in dumpsters and by the side of the road, many believed to be by teenage girls who had unwanted pregnancies. More than 50 babies have been abandoned so far this year, and many have died.

Maria Chin Abdullah, a representative of the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality, a coalition of women's aid groups, voiced concern that teachers might not be trained adequately.

"Some teachers can't even (bring themselves to) say the words 'sex' and 'condom,"' she said.