Parental Attitude towards sex education at the lower primary in Ghana

Abstract

This study investigates parental attitude towards sex education at the lower primary level of education in Ghana. In all 100 parents ranging from 20 to 60 years, with diverse socio-economic backgrounds consisting of 64 males and 36 females where sampled for the study. Out of this number, 63% reside in urban areas, whereas 37% reside in rural areas. The results indicate that about 58% of parents have an unfavourable attitude towards sex education in lower primary schools. Unsurprisingly, all the parents who held unfavourable attitude towards sex education said that children are too young for sex education at the lower primary school level. However, of the parents who held favourable attitude; 81% indicated that children are exposed a lot these days. 17% admitted that sex education will be helpful to the children and 2% said children ask questions about sex anyway and needed to be provided with answers. Finally, the results showed that there is no gender difference in parental attitude towards sex education, as well as no residency difference about sex education. However, there was a difference in parental attitude in connection to their educational level. The implications of the findings from this research are discussed.