Strengthening access to quality comprehensive health education in The Gambia

This newsletter describes the project’s aims and background. It also outlines some of the school and community-based interventions that are explored.

This report describes the project research, problems, objectives, methodology, implementation, outputs and outcomes of the five years implementation research project funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC). The overall aim of this project was to understand the underlying factors that affect the implementation of comprehensive health education for adolescents in and out of school; then to use the information generated to design and implement relevant school and community-based programs that will include teacher and community-based trainings on sexuality education and discussion sessions with adolescents and youth networks to strengthen access to quality comprehensive health education, information and services among in and out of school adolescents in Region 1, The Gambia.

Unmet sexual education needs of adolescents due to socio-cultural challenges have been ignored in different societies. This study investigated students’ perception on the sexual education they received at school level, and what they really preferred and needed. In this qualitative study, five focus group discussions with 50 adolescents and 10 individual in-depth interviews were conducted among respondents aged 15-19 in both public and private schools in region 1, The Gambia. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The study results revealed that the adolescents were dissatisfied with the sexuality education in their schools. The emerged themes included: lack of priority for sexuality education, lack of appropriate educational materials and trained teachers and inconsistency of the sexuality education content with the adolescents’ needs. The adolescents in this study showed great abilities to appraise sexuality education and health services delivered for them, and so any program for sexual health promotion in adolescents ought to address adolescents’ needs, demands, and aspirations.

Adolescents and youth are individuals who are in the phase of life that separates early childhood and adulthood, a period that requires special attention and protection. This study was carried out to assess the baseline knowledge and attitudes concerning sexual and reproductive health among in-school adolescents in Greater Banjul area in Region 1, The Gambia. This cross-sectional study was carried out among 1505 in-school adolescents selected from secondary schools by systematic sampling technique. Data was collected using a structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire. The knowledge and attitudes concerning sexual and reproductive health were poor among in-school adolescents in studied. There is a need for an all-inclusive, comprehensive sexuality education to be implemented in all secondary schools in The Gambia.