Personal experiences and opinions of the teacher candidates
about sexual education
Ilhami Unluoglu, Aysegul Kul Uludag, Ugur Bilge, Ahmet Keskin,
Zafer Ulusoy
Osmangazi University Faculty of Medicine Department of Family
Medicine Eskisehir/Turkey
Objectives: Turkey is a country that has a great young
population; with 15-22 years old comprising 21 % of the society. However, there
is a lack in sexual education(SE). Recently, young population has started to
receive reproductive health education since they represent a high risk group of
unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Design and Methods: The questionnaire applied to the last
term students of Osmangazi University Faculty of Education to specify; how they
got the knowledge about sex from, whom they got from, if they had taken any
lessons about reproductive health, if so; whether it was enough or not, which of
SE they want to get, in the future whom they want their children to give SE,
where and when they want these educations given. These questions were asked to
them, face to face, to learn their opinions about SE and family planning .
Results: One hundred and forty participants (between the
ages of 19-29) were included in the study. 81 (57.9%) of these were females and
59 (42.1%) were males. 69.3% of the students were from city centers, 30.7% of
them were from rural area. In the study, 91.0% of females and 72.8% of males
stated that they had their knowledge about sexual topics from friends. The
second most popular source for females was books (50.6%), and for males (42.3%)
was internet. 50.6% of the females stated that ;they want to take SE from
educated young or adult persons whereas 47.4% of males prefered health centers
or health workers. Among 53 (37.8%) students, took education about reproductive
health from their schools, only 10 of them said that the education was
sufficient. 60.4% of females informed that they want to take education mostly
about pregnancy, birth and abortion, whereas; 59.3% of the males want
information mostly about STDs. 65.0% of the participants state that, in the
future, SE should be given to their children by their family and also this SE
must be supported in schools.
Conclusions: Current study was conducted to get the
opinions of future teacher candidates about reproductive health and make use of
these opinions in points that must be taken into account in future SE planning.
It is hopefull that teacher candidates who could not get regular sufficient SE
in the past, demand better education for future generations. It is obvious that
SE must be given continuously throughout all ages and teachers must be given a
higher support in doing this since teachers and teacher candidates play an
important role in future planning.