The rate of teenage pregnancy cases have increased rapidly in the past few years not only in this locality but also throughout the whole country. According to the Martin, Hamilton, and Sutton (2009) report, about one million girls at teenage become pregnant at the end of each year. The report continues to indicate that about 40% of the young women become pregnant before they attain 20 years. The situation is not different in the Riley locality where the rate is even higher compared to the national teen pregnancy rate. This can be attributed to many factors such peer pressure, inadequate sex education, lack of birth control methods, pressure from boyfriends, rape among other causes. Research studies have also found that about 50% of the high school students have sex before they complete their studies (Mahavarkar, Madhu, & Mile, 2008). This has also led to high rate of drop out in high schools among teenage girls. The research will propose strategies that would reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy in the community through introduction of sex education program to teach children in elementary schools about sex education as a way of fighting this wrong trend among teenage girls.
Sex education program
The proposed sex education program will compose of a thorough and comprehensive sex curriculum where all the elementary schools in this locality will teach their students about their bodies, sex practices. Sex practices in this case include: safe sex, sex education, prevention of pregnancy, and other aspects related to human sexuality. According to Jewkes, Morrell, & Christofides (2009), teaching teenagers about sexuality is crucial in minimizing early pregnancies. Sexuality is at the center of every human being and even students are not left out of wanting to learn about their sexual growth and development. As noted above, many cases of early pregnancy among teens are as result of inadequate knowledge about sex because they learn it from wrong sources such as listening from their friends, media, among others. Wrong sources of information have made many students to have sex at early age, which have increased cases of teenage pregnancy among the youths. Other students have decided to engage in sex before marriage as a result of common societal myths and traditions.
For instance, some youths believe that practicing sex before marriage is a sign of strong manhood or womanhood and those who do not do so are not men or women enough. Thus this sex education program will equip students with the correct information about their sexuality and safe sex practices that will help them to make right decision about sex as they grow up. The program will introduce children to the psychological, physiological, sociological, and other sexual responses as well as reproduction system to ensure that students are ready for the changes they expect to experience in their bodies as they grow. The program will introduce students to all the aspect of sexuality such as body image, sexual pleasure, sexual orientation, values, dating, making decision, relationships, and other related issues.
In addition, the students will also be taught about dangers that comes with indulging in sexual behaviors in early age such as early pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, school dropout and many other effects of having unprotected sex. This will make sure that students know about the consequences of their sexual decisions, and they can take the necessary precautions to protect themselves even when they choose to have sex. This will reduce their chances of becoming pregnant as well as protecting themselves from STDs infections.
Challenges expected
Introducing sex education, especially to elementary school students is not easy and educators would meet a number of challenges. First, both teachers and students are shy about the topic, which may affect how sex information would be passed between them. Some teacher may lack the necessary skills on how to handle this complex issue effectively, without shying away from giving sex information as the program requires. Students may also not be in a position to ask their teachers questions because of shyness, thus reducing the efficiency of the whole program.
Second, many parents and other groups such as religious leaders may oppose introduction of sex education to the students on the basis of their religious beliefs, thus making it difficult for the program to be implemented. Religious groups may not agree on teaching safe sex in schools as required in the program because they advocate for abstinence until marriage. Finally, sex education may be seen as a course just for recreation that does not count in the examinations of the students. In fact some school administrators may not be willing to allocate it time in their timetables because it will not count in the academic performance of their school. This will seriously affect the implementation of the program. However with adequate awareness among the educators, parents, government, and society in general, the program will receive the necessary support for its implementation.
References
Jewkes, R. Morrell, R., & Christofides,N. (2009). Empowering teenagers to prevent pregnancy: lessons from South Africa. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 11(7), 675-688.
Mahavarkar, S., Madhu, C., & Mule, V. D. (2008).A comparative study of teenage pregnancy. Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 28(6), 604-607.
Martin J.A., Hamilton B.E., & Sutton, P.D. (2009). Births: final data for 2006, National Vital Statistics Report, 57(7), 1-25.
