WELCOME

The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our … civilization.
Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

This exhortation of Lyndon B.Johnson to youths of his time is as important to this generation as it was to those youths. We are the future and can make a difference.

Welcome to this blog in which Kwa Gaston reflects on how his dream world-A world in which though scarce resources are equitably distributed to its inhabitants each according to his/her needs and merits and in which the long ignored potentials of youths as key development actors is acknowledged and tapped for the achievement of a world that is just through more people-centered and more youth inclusive policy formulation and implementation processes
-could more than a dream become a reality.

lundi 3 décembre 2012

Sex Education in Cameroon: A New Dawn(?)

Education is one of the cornerstones on which any development worth the name is built. The growing acknowledgement of this fact has led to the emergence of many nations in our world today. But the fact that education has become an item at the top of the agenda of major international bodies and policy formulation processes is not enough. The efficiency of the educational system is an important aspect of quality education that is most often neglected by educational authorities and policy makers in Cameroon. In fact, many now believe that our educational system more than any other thing  is the cause  of our problems.
If the educational system in Cameroon is as inefficient as it is, more inefficient even has been sex education in primary and secondary schools. Sex education in schools in Cameroon has been so inefficient that the government had no choice   but to acknowledge this and take necessary measures to correct the failings of sex education in Cameroon.
Introduced by Cameroon’s government through a ministerial decree on the 18th of January 2007, Education on Family life, Population Issues, HIV/AIDs has been implemented in Cameroon’s schools only since September 2012. To build the capacity of teachers and correct the failings of the abandoned approach to sex education, a series of Radio programs have been organized by ministries in charge of education and health in Cameroon alongside UNAIDs. Through active and collective listening of these programs by teachers in the 350 centers selected across the country, teachers of secondary, primary, and   teachers training colleges are enlightened and given the opportunity to ask questions to clear their doubts and deepen their understanding on the new approach of imparting knowledge on family life, population issues, and HIV/AIDs to pupils and students.
The new approach to sex education in schools in Cameroon is aimed at developing   positive, protective, and safe behaviors among students for their present and future lives  as grown-ups and  thereby fully understand and take the reproductive health rights agenda at heart. Despite the fact that this new approach has been   developed with  the support of international bodies like UNAIDs, my  greatest fear is that, like the abandoned approach to sex education, this  new approach will fail in achieving the laudable  goals for which  it has been  created.
Lack of monitoring and evaluation is one of those things which could easily lead to the failure of the new approach to sex education in Cameroon’s schools. The government and its donors must therefore ensure that there be a constant monitoring and periodic evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of this approach.
Coupled with the above, resistance by  a cross-section of society of the new, realistic, and down- to-earth manner of the approach to sex education in Cameroon’s schools  could further complicate  the implementation of  this laudable reform in Cameroon’s educational system.

This reform to Cameroon’s educational system in itself is one that should be considered in countries whose approaches to sex education have over the years not produced the desired results. The use of radio will enable a huge number of teachers to improve   their knowledge of sex education increased and thereby bring about a revolution in the teaching of Sex, Population Issues, HIV/ AIDs in Cameroon.
This reform is proof of the fact that, Youth and reproductive health rights are slowly but surely taking their place at the heart of the development policy agenda in Cameroon. Though full of obstacles and challenges, the path chosen by the thousands of young Cameroonians who day-in, day-out advocate for the inclusion of youths in the formulation and implementation of  youth-focused policies is the right path. We shall overcome!

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