Adolescence is a time of enormous emotional and physical changes opening up multiple opportunities and posing serious risks to girls and boys if they approach it unprepared and without necessary information and support. Attitudes and behaviours, habits and preferences shaped in adolescence can have a lasting effect on health and wellbeing throughout the life course. Therefore, health and life skills education is a crucially important element of education and up-bringing; it is a long-term investment in boosting human capital in any society.
The quality of education is determined to a great extend by teachers' competency and content of education, teaching approaches and the level of learners engagement and participation as well as synergies created by involvement of other partners like youth-friendly health services and youth organizations.
To strengthen capacities of educators, youth and health practitioners working in area of adolescent health, GIZ, GFA Consulting Group and UNESCO (Bureau in Almaty) have developed and ICT-based course «Adolescent health in a life course perspective».
The course consists of five modules, which provide comprehensive information about adolescent physical, emotional, psycho-social and sexual development, puberty, reproductive health, prevention of sexually transmitted infections including HIV and unplanned pregnancy, as well as on effective teaching approaches. Each module has educational videos, exercises, tests and references.
The course was endorsed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Kyrgyz Republic and as of the beginning of 2015/2016 academic year it was integrated into teacher pre- and in-service preparation at Kyrgyz Arabaev State University and Kyrgyz Academy of Education. At the moment, the course is reviewed to be used in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
The course is available on DVDs.
The course can be downloaded here.