Sex Education Needs of Adolescents in Secondary School of Anambra state, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This study evolved the sex education needs of adolescents in secondary school of Anambra state. Specifically, the study determined the sex-related challenges (body changes, emotional changes and relationship with the opposite sex) of adolescents in secondary schools in Anambra State, the sex education knowledge needed by adolescents to cope with the sex-related challenges, the sex education attitude required by adolescents to cope with the sex-related challenges, the sex education skills needed by adolescents to cope with the sex related challenges, different ways of teaching sex education needs to adolescents in Anambra state. Five research questions and five null hypotheses guided the study at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of 93,060 respondents, these included 81,020 adolescents, 4,138 teachers and 7,902 parents. Multistage sampling technique was adopted in the selection of 300 adolescents, 43 parents, and 40 teachers as sample for the study. The instrument for data collection was a 81- item structured questionnaire. The instrument was subjected to face validation by three experts. To obtain the reliability of the instrument, 20 copies of the questionnaire were trial tested on 20 similar respondents from Enugu State. Cronbach Alpha reliability test was used to establish the internal consistency of the instrument with overall reliability index of 0.76. Data collected were analyzed by the rating scale of Agreed (A), Strongly Agreed (SA), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD) using mean and standard deviation for the research questions and t-test for testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the respondents agreed on 10 physical body changes related challenges, 10 emotional changes related challenges and 11 relationship with the opposite sex related challenges, making all the sex related challenges to be 31items. The respondents also agreed on 14 sex education knowledge of adolescents in secondary schools, the attitudes needed are eleven. 11 skills required by adolescent to cope with their sex related challenges and 10 different ways of teaching sex education to adolescent were agreed by adolescents and teachers. Based on the findings, it was concluded that, the sex related challenges (body changes, emotional changes and relationships) of adolescents in junior secondary school, sex education knowledge, sex education attitudes, skills and ways of teaching sex education to adolescents evolves the sex education needs of adolescents in secondary schools. Sex education knowledge, attitudes, skills and ways of teaching sex education are ways sex education needs of adolescents could be met. It was recommended that, schools should consider participating in the development and implementation of sexuality education curricula for schools to decrease the rates of unsafe adolescent sexual behavior and adverse outcomes.