Sex Education - A Necessary Tool For the Youth

Modern education is seen as a backbone to development and growth on all fronts of the human society. On this background, most countries of the world dedicate huge sums of money and lots of resources into ensuring that their education systems are strengthened to be able to harness all the God-given resources in man. No wonder every country that pays attention to proper education of its citizens has made and continues to make giant strides in development.

Sex education, also known as sexuality education or relationships education should therefore be viewed in the same direction as it is a means or process of acquiring information and forming attitudes and beliefs about sex, sex identity, relationships and intimacy. Based on this basic definition, I would say that, like all other forms of education, it is intended to help the individual to discover who he/she really is in terms of sexuality and be able to appreciate it with all pride.

Education as we all know, has a target group and sex education is no exception. Its primary target is the youth in society and should be intended to help them to develop positive attitudes and behaviors about sex. I believe it should include information about all aspects of the human sexual anatomy such as the sex organs and their functions, the physical changes that take place in the individual as a result of growth, the emotional changes and their effects on the individual's relation to members of the opposite sex. Also it should touch on very sensitive topics as well and not just brush them over since it has the tendency of making the individual to suspect something fishy about those information that were left out in the course of the education process and this might have serious consequences on the individual later in life.

Furthermore, it should touch on topics such as family planning, reproduction, sexual orientation, sexual pleasure, values, decision making, dating, relationships and information on sexually transmitted diseases and their modes of contraction.

Among the agents of sex education are parents; who in my view occupy a central role here; since parents have gone through most of the processes that count very much in sex education, I feel they will be the right people to tell the youth exactly what is entailed in it and be able to tell the best ways of doing things, example how to have sexual intercourse and address issues such as orgasm and all other sensitive matters; their experiences bringing to bare. Also other agents include teachers, religious leaders, friends and the electronic and print media; sex education websites, sex columnists and advisers and many more.

One may ask questions such as "what is the appropriate time to begin sex education, isn't it too early to be exposing issues concerning sex to young people, am I not encouraging him/her to begin practicing what I am teaching him and a whole host of other questions". It might interest you to know that if young people rather are not given answers by adults to most of the things they experience in the course of their development, they tend to fish out for answers themselves and who knows the consequences may be more destructive.

Moreover, according to a review of forty-eight studies of comprehensive sex and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI)/HIV education program in US schools, there was a strong evidence that such programs did not increase sexual activities but rather reduced them or increased rates of the use of condom or other contraceptives or even both. I am therefore of the view that parents and guardians should take the bull by the horn and take their wards through comprehensive sex education. This will give them the opportunity of passing the right information to them before their minds are polluted from other sources.

In addition, I still think it should be done at an early age since the individual at this stage is now developing his/her patterns of behavior and can easily get along with it. That is to say, a strong foundation is easily built at this stage which gives the individual the opportunity to build on with more complex knowledge with the advancement of time. I must however, emphasize that it is very necessary for the educator to first find out the amount and validity of information that the individual may have in his/her possession in other to be able to make any corrections of fake facts and also add more informed information to what the person already possess.

As seen in all forms of education, there are numerous advantages associated with sex education and among them include: it minimizes the risks and dangers of potentially negative outcomes from sexual behaviors like unwanted pregnancies and being infected with STI's, enhances quality of relationships between members of the opposite sex, helps young people to make right choices of life partners and equips the individual to make informed decisions about his/her personal sexual activity.

It is clearly evident that sexual education really has an important role to play in the development of young people into people who can fit into society both morally and socially and also be able to appreciate their God-given sexuality and express it with all pride and happiness.