Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) Curriculum in 10 East and Southern African Countries and HIV Prevalence among the Youth

Abstract

Introduction: Young people easily fall prey to risky and dangerous practices such as drug abuse, unprotected sexual intercourse etc. due to lack of knowledge about the implications of these practices. Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) was developed to solve this problem by educating young minds so that they can avoid risky sexual behaviours and live healthy lives. Methods: The ten countries in East and Southern Africa selected were those whose CSE curriculum had been reviewed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). We developed a scoring protocol to be able to specifically group a curriculum into three categories (A, B and C) based on its weakness. The data for HIV was based on the UNAIDS estimation. Data was analyzed with the Microsoft Excel Version 2010. Results: Sixty (60%) percent of the countries involved had CSE curriculum with minor to moderate concerns, while the remaining 40% had moderate to serious gaps. Botswana and Lesotho had high prevalence of HIV among both young males and females. Majority of the countries with CSE curriculum having minor to moderate gaps had high prevalence of HIV among males within age 15-24 years. In the female category, one of the countries using CSE curriculum with moderate to serious gaps had an average HIV prevalence higher than the average of all the 10 countries involved in the study. Conclusion: It is recommended that factors responsible for high HIV prevalence as identified in this study be addressed. This might help reduce the prevalence of HIV.