As Curriculum Research, Evolution and Development Directorate (CREDD) dissemination meeting under MoBSE’s reached the National Assembly, the principal investigator of the project has informed the National Assembly Select Committee on Health, Women, Children, Refugees, Disaster, and Humanitarian Relief the relevance of Comprehensive Health Education (CHE) to students both in-and-out of school.
The dissemination meeting with the National Assembly select Committee on Health, Women, Children, Refugees, Disaster, and Humanitarian Relief was centered on Comprehensive Health Education under the project – Strengthening Access to Quality Comprehensive Health Education in The Gambia.
It is an implementation research project done by Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education funded by International Development Research Center (IDRC), Canada.
In her presentation, Mrs Phebian Ina Grant-Sagnia, principal investigator of the project for Strengthening Access to Quality Comprehensive Health Education for in-and-out of School Adolescents in Region 1, said that CHE among adolescents and youth would provide students with life skills with which they can handle crisis situations.
She said CHE encompasses all aspects of a young person’s life, which, she added, included skills, attitudes, and practices of children and youth that are conducive to their good health and promote wellness, health maintenance, and disease prevention among other things.
Mrs Grant-Sagnia, who is also a Principal Health Researcher at the Ministry of Health stated that adolescents have various needs with respect to sexual development and have a need to receive help in understanding changes of their body and behavior and how to cope with these not only at the time but also how to integrate them into a mature personality in the future.