Description
Abstract
Young people in South Africa are vulnerable to risky sexual behaviour. They tend to see sex as a moment of pleasure and neglect the consequence of such an act. The South African government see it as essential to institutionalise sex education at primary schools to ensure that young people are well equipped with the necessary skills to increase their sexual knowledge and improve their behaviour. The implementation of sex education at primary schools may seem, from an African perspective, like a way of encouraging youth from a young age to be sexually active. However, the idea is to ensure that young people are knowledgeable about sexual activity, given the fact that most of them in South Africa continue to be exposed to high rates of sexual promiscuity. This paper explores young people’s reaction to the South African government’s decision to implement sex education at primary schools and how it impacted their healthy sexual behaviour. The study’s location was the Collins Chabane Municipality, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Ten young people – five males and five females, aged 14 to 16 years old, were purposely sampled to participate in this study. A qualitative approach was used to explore their experience of the implementation of sex education at primary schools. A focus group was used to collect data, and thematic analysis was employed to carefully analyse the crucial themes that emerged from the data.
Keywords: Sex education, youth perceptions, healthy, Sexual behaviour
