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CSE Not Bad, Let Our Religion And Culture Guide Its Content –Educationist

By Ayisah Foster | Kumasi
General News CSE Not Bad, Let Our Religion And Culture Guide Its Content –Educationist
OCT 15, 2019 LISTEN

An Educationist and a Social Commentator, Mr. George Akom, has described the Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) curriculum which was expected to be implemented by the Ghana Education Service (GES) under the Ministry of Education (MoE) as not a bad programme for our current socio-cultural dynamism of the youth.

He continued that, CSE dates back to early 1957 had gone through transitional stages till now which was carried out in different forms with different expressive names under subjects with different topics.

He emphasized that the comprehensive nature of the CSE curriculum must be broadened to provide early sexuality life behaviours that would be suitable for our current sexuality situation of the youth guided by our culture and religion.

The alarming cases of rape, defilement and high incidence of teenage pregnancy, leading to questions from various stakeholders regarding the extent to which the efforts that have been put in place with regard to sexuality education is something that our curriculum for sexuality education must be addressed.

He stressed that, although some topics within the syllabi were out of place in our cultural and religious context, the whole curriculum of the CSE should not be described as a worse curriculum.

“We need to re-consider some of the topics which were not appropriate for the sake of our culture and religion, rather than to accept any knowledge and skills which were alien to our culture and social life. Some socio –cultural learning outcomes are good for our global life, but must always be placed in cultural and religious context”, Mr. Akom stated.

He added that the CSE aspect that provides information about human development, anatomy and reproductive health, as well as information about contraception, childbirth, abstinence from or delay having sexual relations, avoiding the frequency of unprotected sex when they become sexually active, know the risk of having several sexual partners and many more.

Despite these concepts, the teaching of the various topics within the CSE curriculum must be at the appropriate level of understanding and maturity.

“I was surprised at some Ghanaian agencies, Civil Society Organisations (CSO), and Stakeholders who had the opportunity to provide some input into the development of the National Guidelines for CSE education in Ghana in consultation with the Development Partners without recourse to our religious and socio-cultural background for which the final document had created blame game on the government for the total abolishment of the CSE programme”, Mr. Akom bemoaned.

He further indicated that the reaction from the public had made the whole programme stigmatized which could affect its implementation in the future even if some changes were made to the content.

Mr. George Akom who is an Assistant Registrar of the Ghana Technology University College- Kumasi Campus charged Media houses and Stakeholders to also educate the public about the importance and the positive side of CSE in Ghana rather than emphasizing only on the negative side of the whole programme.

Source: The Punch Newspaper
Email: [email protected]

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