Perceptions Of Parents, Teachers And Students Towards Sexual And Reproductive Health Education In Junior High Schools In Okaikoi North Sub-Metro, Accra, Ghana

Abstract

Access to reproductive health information is considered key in forestalling risk associated with adolescent sexual life. To this end, there has been considerable effort by government and civil society organisations to facilitate access to sexual and reproduction health (SRH) information among adolescents in Ghana to make them aware of their sexual and reproductive health issues. Among these efforts is the introduction of SRH education in the curriculum in Junior High Schools (JHS) throughout the country. The study seeks to explore the perception of parents, teachers and students towards SRH education in JHS within the Okaikoi North Sub-metro. Using theoretical triangulation, the study adopts the theory of reasoned action / planned behaviour, cultural conservatism and cultural liberalism as theoretical framework and discusses the concept of perception and adolescent SRH. It adopts a purely qualitative approach to gathering and analysing data. Thus, interviews and participant observation were utilised in collecting primary data, while the thematic framework analysis technique of organising data according to key themes and concepts evident in a dataset was adopted for analyses of data. The study reveals that there is tremendous endorsement of SRH education in Junior High School (JHS) by parents, teachers and students, thus the need to promote it in JHS. In addition, the study shows that, while culture and religion has no effect on the perception of teachers and students towards SRH education in schools, parents were very much affected by culture and religion as far as certain aspects of SRH education is concerned. Finally, it establishes that SRH education in schools is faced with resource, cultural and religious challenges and recommends among other things that school-based SRH education be intensified in order to break the cycle of strong adherence to conservative culture.