UNESCO is launching a newly revamped Comprehensive Sexuality Education Online Course for Teacher
NAIROBI — UNESCO is organizing a Regional Webinar to launch the newly revamped Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) Online Course for Teachers. The webinar is organized by UNESCO Regional Offices for Eastern and Southern Africa and is bringing together stakeholders from the region.
The CSE Online Course for Teachers is a self-paced online course that provides teachers with access to comprehensive study material developed by CSE experts. Teachers are acquiring adequate knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are critical for effective CSE delivery. This is a way to enable teachers to deliver CSE that is age-appropriate, scientifically accurate, and transformative. UNESCO will promote this course in the region in order to ensure delivery of good quality comprehensive sexuality education in schools.
The CSE Learning Platform was developed within the context of a programme being implemented by UNESCO entitled Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future, (O3). The purpose of this Platform is to encourage knowledge sharing and learning across countries, connecting different stakeholders, including but not limited to, policy makers, teachers, health workers, opinion leaders, parent, so that they can share experiences, resources, and lessons in promoting the health and well-being of adolescents and young people. The Learning Platform, therefore, provides a unique opportunity for countries to exchange and strengthen the delivery of good quality Comprehensive Sexuality Education.
Comprehensive Sexuality Education is a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social aspects of sexuality. It aims to equip children and young people with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that will empower them to protect their health, wellbeing, and dignity, as well as to develop respectful social relationships and consider the well-being of others affected by their choices. Importantly, it also helps them to understand and act upon their rights throughout their lives.
The O3 Programme is working toward a sub-Saharan Africa where all adolescents and young people attain positive health, education, and gender equality outcomes. This vision can only be realized through consistent reduction in new HIV infections, early and unintended pregnancy, gender-based violence, and child marriage. Eastern and Southern Africa is home to an estimated 1.74 million adolescents living with HIV, representing 60% of the global total. Across 20 of the ESA Commitment countries, nearly 4,000 adolescent girls and women aged 15-24 became infected with HIV every week in 2021. In 2021, 7 in 10 new HIV infections among young people aged 15-24 in ESA were among adolescent girls and young women. Eastern and Southern Africa young have tremendous potential for achieving Africa’s development, but they can only do it if sustained investments are made to address the education and health challenges that continue to undermine young people’s well-being.