School-based reproductive health and safety education for students aged 12–15 years in UNESCO’s (2009) International Technical Guidance

Abstract

Globally, adolescents aged 12–15 years are making sexual and reproductive decisions of profound significance for their future, often based on misguided, inadequate or dangerously wrong information. Very few countries provide evidential and comprehensive education about puberty, sexuality, and reproductive health and safety to children and young adolescents at school, when it is most effective and beneficial. UNESCO has produced a culturally applicable framework for such education, with the primary aim of reducing sexual risk behaviour and sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS. This study analyses the 2009 International Technical Guidance for its appropriateness, relevance and contemporaneity to this young teenage cohort, who are at most risk of the consequences of ignorance.

Keywords:

• curriculum development
• educational rationale
• HIV/AIDS
• puberty
• reproductive health and safety education
• sexuality education
• schools
• UNESCO