Soon after a provincial health official in Indonesia disclosed findings that showed growing sexual activity among high school students, he found himself booted out of a job.

''He is not authorised to make such disclosures,'' Sudibyo Yuwono, head of the Central Java health office, said of the dismissed official, Muchtadi.

Muchtadi, who like many Indonesians uses just one name, quoted results of two studies showing that Indonesian youth were increasingly having intimate and sexual relations with partners.

Some students visited prostitutes regularly and were often not too concerned about using protection, such as condoms, against AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, he added.

Far from being just a case of a bureaucrat overstepping lines of authority, Muchtadi's fate reflects a hesitance by Indonesian authorities to confront realities about the changing sexual behaviour of youth in what is seen as a conservative society.

This attitude, in turn, may well be a constraint in efforts to disseminate information about AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes the disease.

A decade after the first AIDS case was reported in Indonesia, there were 153 officially reported cases of AIDS and 621 HIV- positive individuals. Yet in 1996 the World Health Organisation estimated HIV prevalence among adults aged 15 to 49 to be at 95,000 persons, or .088 percent of the population (far below Thailand's 2.3 percent or India's .514 percent).

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, religious leaders say they recognise that social institutions have to join the fight against HIV/AIDS. In November 1995, ulamas or religious leaders from all over Indonesia met in Bandung, south- east of Jakarta, to outline joint action against AIDS.

They agreed, though, that condoms were not a solution to preventing the disease. ''What we have to do is to eradicate out- of-marriage sex and prostitution all the way,'' said E Sukamana, an ulama of the Bandung-based Islam Union boarding school.

Others find this approach limited. To reach a wider and younger audience, the Sidikara foundation is using radio -- a medium more likely to reach more people and appeal to the youth.

Satrina says his foundation finds that holding discussions on sexual issues among student groups is more effective because ''it is easier for them to get information from their friends than from teachers or parents''. Some parents, however, protest that such NGO projects encourage youth to become sexually permissive.

Others view the suggestion to use condoms to ensure safe sex, as an endorsement of promiscuity. ''Suggesting to people to use condoms means suggesting free sex. We are supposed to prevent them from free sex,'' said one health official.

Yet anti-AIDS workers say the information is the only way to make people change behaviour. Argued Satriana: ''The fact is people are becoming more permissive. And if you cannot ask people to avoid out-of-marriage sex, you must inform them of the consequences'.