By Yunus S Saliu
Comprehensive Health Education (CHE) team with the Curriculum Research, Evaluation and Development (CREDD) under Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) Friday, 13th held an orientation program for the teachers, school representatives and member of judges for the upcoming CHE School Drama and Poem Competition due this Friday, 20th May 2022.
The orientation program was held at the Regional Education Office 1 Complex, Kanifing and was attended by schools teachers, student representatives; selected panel of judges for the competition; staffs of CREDD; educationists, health officials among others.
CHE Competition is meant to Strengthen Quality Comprehensive Health Education information through drama and poetry performance. The CHE Drama and Poetry competition will create and reinforce awareness among selected schools on early marriage, unplanned pregnancy prevention, menstruation; FGM; STIs; HIV/AIDS and GBV.
More so, this unique competition will provide an opportunity for the research investigators and the Curriculum Directorate to evaluate the understanding of students on CHE-Information base on their drama and poetry performance.
Presiding over the program on behalf of Director of CREDD, Ms Fatou Dally Bittaye Cham disclosed that 24 schools from Upper and Senior Secondary Schools are invited to participate in the CHE Competition. She noted that it is not just only these schools that are participating in the program, thus, “43 schools are part of the activities but out of them it is only 24 schools selected for the competition.”
According to her, the CHE competition will further create awareness on Comprehensive Health Education which all students can benefit from throughout and the team will also able to transmit more information through the teachers.
Adding to that, she implored the teachers to adequately coach the students as there are issues which “we would want you to put into poetry or drama. This includes menstruation (menstrual hygiene); prevention of pregnancy; STIs; body puberty and reproduction; society and the culture; factors of vulnerability which covers some of the issues disturbing our adolescents.”
With believe, she said having cohort of students to put into the issue of ASRH into play students will learn faster and will generate knowledge from that poetry or drama.
She, therefore, called on all invited schools, teachers and students to take it up as a serious issue so that they can create more awareness on the issue when they get back to their various schools, while she thanked them especially the teachers for taking it as responsibility in teaching and guiding the students.
Giving a brief overview of the CHE Drama/Poetry School Competition, the Principal Investigator, Phebian Ina Grant Sagnia, according to the research findings on the project, said there is limited communication between adolescents and their parents on Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) issues when it comes to Strengthening Access to Quality Comprehensive Health Education in The Gambia. This communication gap, she noted, including discussions on body and puberty, menstruation, pregnancy prevention, STIs and the use of contraceptives.
So, believing that knowledge on Quality Comprehensive Health Education is essential to all adolescent boys and girls, especially those in school, she said the concept of organizing a Comprehensive Health Education Drama and Poetry Competition is designed to evaluate the understanding of students on key thematic areas relating to Quality comprehensive Health Education information through performance.
However, the Principal Investigator has urged and encouraged not only students and teachers but every adolescent, youth and parent to come and support the students in this crusade.
Micheal Secka of CREDD outlined the criteria and standard procedure which the panel of judges will use for the completion, which including critical looking at the contents; organization; mechanical accuracy; sentences structure; tenses; use of punctuations; expression; low of speaking words among others will be captured by the panel during the competition.
Giving a rundown of the phases of the first edition of CHE Drama and Poetry Competition starting Friday, 20th May in Banjul at St Joseph’s SSS, Saidou Jallow, Coordinator of the CHE Competition said the elimination round one for Banjul Schools (SSS/UBS) is 20th, the elimination round one for KMC Schools (SSS/UBS) is scheduled for 27th May while the elimination round two for both KMC and Banjul Schools (SSS/UBS) – quarter final is 10th June.
The grand final for the competition and award of trophies is 24th June, 2022.
Strengthening Access to Quality Comprehensive Health Education in The Gambia is an implementation research project done by Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education with funding from International Development Research Center (IDRC), Canada.