Teenage girls entering high school in one province in Indonesia will be subject to a virginity test, with the head of the district education office saying it’s ‘‘for their own good’’.

H.M. Rasyid, the education office head in South Sumatra’s Prabumulih district, said the district budget for 2014 was set to implement the proposal because ‘‘every woman has the right to virginity’’, and that ‘‘we expect students not to commit negative acts’’.

Testing times: an Indonesian schoolgirl.

The test — to be conducted on female students who are typically 15 or 16 and entering the post-compulsory phase of education — would involve examining their hymen to see if they are intact. Boys will neither be physically tested nor asked if they are virgins.

The proposal is like others that periodically arise from officials in Muslim-majority Indonesia, which is modernising fast, to the discomfort of some. They are usually quickly shouted down by civil society and rarely come to fruition.