Adolescents are at a high risk for a number of health consequences associated with early and unsafe sexual activity including infection with HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies. The amplified sexual risk-taking behaviour among adolescents culminates into thinking that perhaps lack of knowledge pertaining to sex and sexuality provokes adolescents into undertaking sexual risks. Consequently, sex education was introduced as a means of introducing youths in the field of sexual and reproductive health in Malawi to help them go for informed decisions. The use of several interventions countrywide is cited to have decreased the rates of sexual activity in some adolescents, however, despite the positive trend many adolescents remain at risk for unintended pregnancy, STIs and HIV/AIDS infection. This study empirically evaluates how sex education has impacted risky sexual behaviours undertaken by the schooling youths in the Machinga district particularly in three schools namely: Mbenjere, Ntaja and Nsanama Community Day Secondary Schools. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were employed in the study. Questionnaire and focus group discussions served as data collection tools. Results of the study revealed that a good number of schooling youths had enough sexual knowledge but still undertook sexual risks. The study however concludes that sex education is failing to positively impact schooling youth’s behaviour because of some cultural and personal factors which seems to contradict the whole purpose of sex and sexuality education amongst youths in Machinga.

中文翻译：

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性教育对上学青少年危险性行为的影响

青少年遭受与早期和不安全的性活动有关的多种健康后果的高风险，包括艾滋病毒/艾滋病感染，性传播感染和意外怀孕。青少年中不断增强的性冒险行为最终导致人们认为，也许缺乏有关性和性知识的知识会激发青少年承担性风险。因此，引入了性教育，将其介绍给马拉维的性健康和生殖健康领域的年轻人，以帮助他们做出明智的决定。据称在全国范围内使用几种干预措施已降低了一些青少年的性活动率，但是，尽管出现了积极趋势，但许多青少年仍然有意外怀孕，性传播感染和艾滋病毒/艾滋病感染的风险。这项研究从经验上评估了性教育如何影响了Machinga地区在校青年的危险性行为，特别是在Mbenjere，Ntaja和Nsanama社区日中学这三所学校中。定性和定量技术均用于研究。问卷调查和焦点小组讨论充当数据收集工具。研究结果表明，许多在校青年具有足够的性知识，但仍然承担着性风险。然而，研究得出的结论是，由于某些文化和个人因素，性教育未能对学龄青年的行为产生积极影响，这似乎与Machinga青年中性教育和性教育的总体目的相矛盾。