Study recommends early sex education in African schools-Womens Day Supplement

Mar 08, 2012

Twelve-year old, Jane Acayo was in class when she got a sharp pain in her stomach. She quickly made it to the school clinic writhing in agony.

Study recommends early sex education in African schools

By Joyce Nyakato

Twelve-year old, Jane Acayo was in class when she got a sharp pain in her stomach. She quickly made it to the school clinic writhing in agony. The nurse told her that what she was experiencing was quite normal and that she didn’t need any pain killers. She was surprised when the nurse gave her a pack of cotton which she much needed to use for the following days. “My periods came as a surprise. I had never been told anything like it,”she recalls. In most communities in Uganda, people prefer to keep quiet about the issue of sexual health. The most influential role models for a young person are his or her parents. Young people want to talk with their parents about sexual health. Unfortunately many parents shun talking about such issues to their children with ease.

Children end up making the wrong decisions about their sex life. Avoiding the subject won’t stop young people from having sex, but it may result in them relying on inaccurate information, putting them at risk of unwanted sex, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). “Earlier and more detailed sex education is needed in Africa,” recommends a Guttmacher Institute study done in areas of Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda. New programmes and policies aimed at preventing HIV in Africa should focus on providing earlier and more comprehensive sex education and reinforcing national health care systems to better serve youth, according to important new  research released today.

The study found that at least half of 15–19-year-olds in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda did not receive any sex education because it was not offered in school, they dropped out of school before reaching the grade in which sex education is offered, or they had never attended school.

The report makes the following recommendations for improving school-based sex education in Africa.

  • To adopt comprehensive curricula that provides accurate sexual health information.

 

  • Target all young adolescents with information before they have sex for the first time.

 

  • Support teacher training to expand coverage of sex education to help the adolescents to stay in school.


In Uganda, women are exposed to sex very early. The Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) 2006 indicates that 24% of Ugandan girls have had sexual intercourse by the age of 15 while the teenage pregnancy rate stands at 25%. Another survey done by the Naguru Teenage  Centre cites 16 as the average age by which girls in Uganda have had their first sexual encounter?

“By the time they clock 18 years, 64% of young women and 50% of men have become sexually experienced,” states a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) fact-sheet. The environment adolescents live in sometimes is not supportive. The reproductive health service providers note that there is still a challenge of reaching all young people countrywide, especially in rural and hard to reach areas where many of the adolescents live.

Reproductive Health Uganda also recommends that schools should have curriculum-based sexuality and reproductive health education programmes. The Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Education introduced a programme on the primary school curriculum called sex education to teach children who have reached puberty. In rural areas where children are not exposed to a lot of information which can help them make healthy sexual choices, the curriculum will do them some justice.

Sex education

Sex education is more than sex or physiology. It is about psychology, about society, about love, marriage and responsibility. It is about how to protect oneself and how to respect and treat the opposite sex. Sex education programmes in schools and on the radio focused on the need to negotiate safe sex and encouraged teenagers to delay the age at which they first have sex.

Young people need accurate information about sex and sexuality if they are to negotiate sexual relationships safely and responsibly. Sexuality education covers a variety of topics, including the biology of sex and reproduction, relationships, sexuality, contraception and sexually transmissible infections (STIs). Young people are exposed to images and stories about sex in the media everyday. They talk to their friends and seek out information on the Internet. Not all of this information, however, is accurate or empowering and may turn out to be misleading if they are not cautioned.

However, in some schools, sex education has met a lot of criticism where people say that the children are too young to know about their body parts and sexual health. Teachers fear that the children are more likely to indulge in sex after the education. Young people need to be aware that sexual responsibility is everyone’s concern, regardless of gender. Thorough information on contraception, STIs and unintended pregnancy should be given to both young men and young women.

Contrary to the average man’s belief talking to young people about sex does not encourage sexual experimentation. Research indicates that young people who receive a comprehensive sexuality education have a lower risk of unintended pregnancy and are less likely to have sex at an early age.

Most young people experiment sexuality to some degree. The best time to decide on the ground rules about sexual behavior is during an open and honest discussion about sex, not during an argument. You will need to decide, for example, whether or not your young person will be allowed to have a sexual partner in the family home. As you discuss this, be aware that forbidding sex at home does not stop young people having sexual experiences

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