As the summer holiday continues, a large number of students participated in the just concluded two-day Comprehensive Health and Sexuality Education (CHE) training workshop organized by the Curriculum Research Evaluation and Development Directorate (CREDD) unit of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) It was funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC).
The training: Strengthening Access to Quality Comprehensive Health Education was held at the NaNA conference hall for adolescents in The Gambia and also availed students the opportunity to learn more about sexual and reproductive health rights and the ability to have free communication with their parents and teachers regarding Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH). The training was as well used to establish CHE clubs in different schools, especially those that already have existing peer health education clubs.
About one hundred male and female students were selected from 43 different Upper Basic and Senior Secondary Schools (both public and private schools across Region One.)
Fatou Dally Bittaye, in her remarks on behalf of the Director of CREDD, reminded students of the former existing Population and Family Life Education but now transformed into Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Comprehensive Health Education because of its importance like other subjects.
She disclosed that CHE is now integrated into other career subjects such as Home Science, Mathematics, English Language, Biology, and Physical and Health Education, among others.
Therefore, she called on all the students of the 46 schools to share the information gained from the training with their co-students who are also vulnerable like them.
She encouraged them to spread the message beyond their schools as well as to their families and neighborhoods while making CHE debatable at home, school, and other places in order to fill the existing communication gap.
Phebian Ina Grant Sagnia informed students of the Comprehensive Health Education under Strengthening Access to Quality Comprehensive Health Education for in and out-of-school adolescents in The Gambia.
She disclosed to them that research was conducted in 43 schools and 19 wards for both in and out-of-school adolescents in Region One, noting that among the gaps discovered during the findings include a lack of communication between adolescents and their teachers and parents.
“There is not enough communication on body and puberty, menstruation and ovulation, unplanned/unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion, contraceptive utilization, STIs, gender-based violence, rape, incest, forced/early marriage, female genital mutilation and a lot of other issues between students, teachers, and parents,” she stated.
However, she noted that most of the communications students receive from friends and social media are always misleading.
Hamadi Micheal Secka, principal education officer at MoBSE advised students to make the best use of the knowledge gained.
