In the traditional African culture, comprehensive sexuality education was passed on to the adolescents in an organised manner. Every culture had its own practices that guided the passage of a child through various stages of life, right into adulthood.
In many cultures, this coincided with the adolescent period, and was sometimes marked by ceremonies that marked the rites of passage. Cultural events such as the male circumcision ceremonies, marked a transitioal phase when boys were initiated into manhood. Aside from the symbolic cut, the boys were secluded for weeks to months, undergoing special education and mentorship with regard to various responsibilities that they were expected to take on as men.
These included leadership, warrior training, conflict resolution, marriage and sexuality education. The cultural practices around how the young men relate with women and girls, their family members, their in-laws and their peers were passed on from generation to generation during such ceremonies.
The same applied to the girls, mostly commencing at the time they got to menarche. They were taught about womanhood, sexuality, marriage and family. They were prepared for their role from an early age, even when in some communities, they would wait for years before they put this knowledge to use. These ceremonies were however at times, tied to harmful practices such as female genital mutilation.
With mordenisation has come the dynamic shift of the way of life for many communities. A lot of the cultural structures have been lost and there is a breakdown of the systematic passing down of a huge essence of the preparation of the adolescent for adulthood; leaving gaps that beg to be filled.
Many countries are still at a loss on how to effectively implement comprehensive sexuality education, opting to use the school-based systems. Many of these attempts are failing due to challenges such as inadequate or inappropriate curriculum content; inadequate capacity of the teachers to effectively implement the curricula; and personal biases of the teachers impacting on their delivery; among others.
The alternative suggestion has been to pass on this responsibility to parents. However, we forget that we have a generation of parents raisnig adolescents, who never had any sexuality education themelves! How, pray tell, do we expect them to execute this mandate when we have not empowered them to?
It is time sexuality education took on a multipronged approach. As we wducate the adolescents, we must educate the parents too. for only then, shall we leave no one behind in this important agenda.