Sex education is putting US teenagers off sex, according to a new study.

Teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 per cent less likely to have sex before the age of 15, while the percentage for girls was 59 per cent, said researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Sex education seems to be working," said Trisha Mueller, who led the study.

"It seems to be especially effective for populations that are usually at high risk."

A survey recently conducted by the Youth Parliament revealed that over half of the young people involved (about 20,000) believed that sex education in schools was not up to scratch, citing poor, very poor or average.

A letter, written to the Times newspaper and signed by the chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, Nick Partridge, Dame Mary Marsh, the chief executive of the NSPCC, and Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers called on the government for action.

"These [survey] figures…may go some way to explaining disproportionately high rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in this country," they wrote.

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