Zimbabwe: Teen Pregnancies Are Soaring. Is Revamping Sex Education the Answer?

When Delight Ziwacha was 16, she didn't know one could get pregnant after having unprotected sex only once. A friend told her that it had to happen multiple times. So, after experimenting with alcohol during a high school soccer tournament, she had unprotected sex with her 17-year-old boyfriend. A month and a half later, she found out she was pregnant.Ziwacha, now 19, doesn't remember ever receiving any sex education in school. The little she knew was from conversations with friends.

Munashe, a primary school teacher who requested to use only his first name for fear of retribution, blames the curriculum design for the steady increase in the number of teenage pregnancies. The design, he says, is evidence of the government's lack of seriousness in sex education. Tawanda, a secondary school teacher who also prefers to go by his first name for fear of retribution, agrees with Munashe."The challenge is it [sex education] is not examinable. Therefore, it doesn't contribute to the learners' passes," he says. A guidance and counseling teacher, Tawanda sees a pressing need for schools to take sex education seriously and assess it for it to be effective.

Not everyone thinks a redesign is necessary. Some say introducing sex education has only stirred the hornet's nest. Exposing young people to this subject has encouraged more to engage in early sex and led to more unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, says Chenai Muti, a parent.

Source: Education Headlines (educationheadlines.net)

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