1 / 20

School-based sex and relationships education in Tanzania: enablers and barriers

School-based sex and relationships education in Tanzania: enablers and barriers. Kitila Mkumbo Abuja, Nigeria 4-7 February 2008. Outline. Young people’s sexual behaviours in Tanzania Why (school-based) SRE matters? Why SRE is not taught in schools in Tanzania? Concluding remarks

johana
Download Presentation

School-based sex and relationships education in Tanzania: enablers and barriers

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. School-based sex and relationships education in Tanzania: enablers and barriers Kitila Mkumbo Abuja, Nigeria 4-7 February 2008

  2. Outline • Young people’s sexual behaviours in Tanzania • Why (school-based) SRE matters? • Why SRE is not taught in schools in Tanzania? • Concluding remarks • Acknowledgements

  3. Young people's sexual behaviour • Characteristically risky: • Early sexual intercourse-median age for first sex is between 15 and 17 (NBS, 2005; TDHS, 2005; Matasha et al., 1998; Mkumbo, 2008; Masatu et al., 2007). • Ineffective condom use (low prevalence and poor use): between 5 and 10% (Todd et al., 2004; less than 50% (Masatu et al., 2007) • Multiple sexual partners common • Forced sexual behaviour increasing (sugar daddies, etc).

  4. Consequences • More than 60% of new HIV infections in Tanzania occur among young people aged 15-24 • Teenage pregnancy and associated consequences (medical, psychological, social) • more than 15% of school drop out among girls are due to teenage pregnancy

  5. Why SRE matters? • Evidence has shown that SRE: • Delays onset of sexual intercourse in young people • Increases the prevalence of condom use • Does not lead to sexual experimentation or sexualised youth hood (Kirby, 2001& 2002; Kirby et al., 2005; Parker, 2001, Singh et al., 2005)

  6. Why SRE should be provided in schools? • Schools have: • the potential to reach a majority of young people • Schools have rich resources including trained teachers • well established linkages with parents/families • SRE is more effective if provided early before young people mature (cognitively, physically and socially)-while they are still in schools

  7. SRE in schools in Tanzania Too little, too biological and inconsequential

  8. SRE in the primary school syllabus

  9. SRE in the secondary school syllabus

  10. What constraints the teaching of SRE in schools in Tanzania? Policy makers’ perspective: Fear of negative reaction from parents and the community

  11. “Policy makers are part of the society. The Ministry cannot put things in the curriculum that will raise anxiety in the community. There is a very big resistance in the community. Parents believe that if we teach these things we will be teaching prostitution. In fact parents do not even hide their feelings, they have even sometimes written to the Minister stating categorically that they don’t want their children to be taught this education. They don’t want to see anything about sex in their children’s exercise books. So the problem is the community” (Male policy maker in a FG).

  12. In search of evidence.. Do parents object to the teaching of SRE in schools? ……Some insights from a survey study

  13. Attitudes on basic SRE issues: %parents who strongly agreed and agreed with statements

  14. Parents' attitudes towards SRE topics….

  15. %parents indicating that SRE topics are very important/important by district

  16. What do parents support SRE for? Sexual health education domains: Cognitive, affective and behavioural (Tones, 1988) Sexual health promotion vs. diseases prevention model (Bandura, 2004)

  17. % parents rating SRE domains as very important and important

  18. Support for sexual health promotion vs. diseases prevention

  19. Concluding remarks • A majority of parents support the provision of SRE in schools especially if it carries the message of HIV/AIDS prevention as a central agenda • These results should encourage school policy-makers to anticipate lower resistance for the introduction of SRE in schools from key stakeholders than they would expect • Objection to the the inclusion of "sensitive" topics such as homosexuality and masturbation indicates that more work need to be done to address negative attitudes about these topics in the wider community

  20. Acknowledgements • Professor Roger Ingham-Supervisor • Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK- funding • University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania-funding and study leave • School of Psychology, University of Southampton, UK-funding Abuja, 4-7 Feb 08

More Related