Pre-service training is the training teachers and other educators receive before they actually begin teaching in a classroom. What this pre-service training looks like will vary from country to country – and the requirements for pre-service training may be very different from community to community. Even so, access to pre-training is essential.
The National Teacher Preparation Standards for Sexuality Education from the United States provide guidance on how to prepare pre-service teachers to deliver CSE, including:
Teacher educators need to be taught how to utilise participatory methodologies to help student/pre-service teachers internalise the knowledge and skills to be acquired. The ways in which teachers learn about the methodology behind the delivery of life skills-based CSE
would be mirrored in their own teaching.
For any pre-service training, it is important that all content areas of the CSE curriculum are included. Common challenges in pre-service trainings that impact content delivery include:
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Lack of strategies for delivering content curricula, especially taking into consideration local policies.
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Lack of knowledge, confidence, capacity, materials, and teaching methodologies amongst teachers.
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Lack of support, supervision, and mentorship for teachers.
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Personal fears, values, and discomfort with certain content areas that lead teachers to avoid them all together.
(Source: UNESCO, 2015 – “Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Teacher Training in Eastern and Southern Africa”)