NATURAL desire collides with values and norms to produce the complex phenomenon of young and unwed mothers. Finding an effective way to deal with it exercises the minds of parents, teachers, social workers, community leaders and policymakers as it is likely to persist. There were 495 newborns registered without a father's name last year. That half, or 248, of them had Malay mothers, as this newspaper reported on Monday, is remarkably over-representative of that community. These out-of-wedlock births are more common among the poor, those with low education and those from broken homes. Also, more than half of 458 Malay mothers aged 15 to 19 last year, married and unmarried, had not gone or had gone only to primary school. Their young age and lack of schooling are of concern and show what needs to be done.

Giving girls a good education serves to delay motherhood and marriage until they are emotionally and intellectually as well as physically ready. Besides preparing them for work, life and parenting, schooling shows them more possibilities and opens up greater choice. It gives them the self-assurance to resist peer pressure and to say 'no' to boys wanting sex. Instead, they will more likely seek and have greater access to wholesome role models. Child development specialists observe that an educated mother will do her best to ensure her daughters are educated at least up to her level of schooling. It is a consequence that should help break the cycle of one generation of young and unwed mothers giving birth to another generation of the same.

Girls' education alone may not amount to a complete solution. Promiscuity cuts through educational levels, although the implications of premarital pregnancy are less serious for older, more highly educated and self-sufficient single women. Parents and the community need to lend positive reinforcement through discipline, mentoring and guidance, whether religious or secular. They also have to find more effective ways to hold fathers accountable beyond mere disapproving grumbling, although it is difficult to formulate and enforce any paternity test law. Non-governmental investment in girls' education, such as generous scholarships, extra coaching, pocket money and free textbooks, is preferable to official school policy favouring girls or any specific community. Schooling may be too late to help those whose babies are already born, but it can certainly help forestall a new generation of teenage and unwed mothers.