Cochin is transforming into a metropolis and the influence of urbanisation is bound to change adolescent attitudes to various issues. The Family Life Education Programs for schools in the city need to be tailored to cater to the existing scenario. Hence, an analysis of the issues that have been engaging the minds of adolescents in Cochin over the past 5 years was undertaken to propose guidelines for the program that would suit the requirements in private co-educational English-medium schools in the city.

During FLE programs for classes IX and XI in private English-medium schools in Cochin, school authorities were requested to collect queries of students, on chits of paper without disclosing their identity, a few days prior to each session. Students were also requested to anonymously answer a pretested questionnaire (separate, for boy and girls). The query chit papers were collected over the last 5 years during 36 sessions conducted in 7 Private Co-ed English-medium schools in Cochin. Each session was attended by around 150-200 students. Three schools gave consent to distribute the questionnaire. The queries and responses to the questionnaire were analyzed in a descriptive manner. Responses by the boys and girls were compared by chi-square test.

The boys and girls together submitted 10660 queries; multiples queries were received from 2289 students. The frequently asked questions included that on masturbation (n=2278), sex and sexuality (n=1684), academic problems (n=1545), substance abuse (n=1355), psychosocial issues (n=922), pornography (n=877), and love and infatuation (n=801). Queries also pertained to problems related to parents (n=827), menstrual problems (n=241), and other medical problems including HIV/AIDS (n=124).

Questionnaire response was submitted by 886 boys and 589 girls. Comparison of answers submitted by girls and boys to common questions in the questionnaire are presented in Table I. The answers to questions in the questionnaire exclusively for boys and girls are given in Table II.

TABLE II Adolescents’ Answers to Questions n(%)

Difficulty controlling emotions, lack of person to share and help out with problems, anxiety and feeling of sadness and depression were the issues raised in 2%, 2.37%, 2.47% and 1.85% of the queries, respectively. Twelve adolescents admitted, through the queries, to be contemplating suicide.

There is need for educating our adolescents on various issues specific to their age group, through meaningful Family Life Education Programs, and its importance is being realized of late(2,3). The knowledge about menstrual hygiene, among girls in India, is unsatisfactory(4). Therefore, sessions on menstruation for girls needs to be dealt with at PTA meetings and in school by the fifth Standard about a year before the onset of menarche in that social setup. Boys need separate sessions to clarify myths regarding masturbation by the seventh or eighth Standard as masturbation-related myths may be the most frequently harbored anxiety among the male adolescent(5). Common source of knowledge about sex and sexuality for children in India are their peers(6). To ensure that they are provided with accurate and authentic information, lessons on safe sex(7), reproductive anatomy, birth control measures and HIV-AIDS need to be included in the curriculum(8,9). Sessions on substance abuse must start by Standard VIII or IX as most children, who start smoking, do so by that age(10).

Collecting queries on chits of paper from students, in their own handwriting, a few days prior to a session is an extremely useful tool in assessing the level of knowledge and the requirements of the target group. The adolescents are able to freely pen their apprehensions and fears and clear all their doubts. The disadvantage is that students may not phrase the query as they actually intended to.

The pretested questionnaires are cost effective, can be used for studies involving large sample sizes, allows introduction of a number of research questions, reduces bias, is easy to analyse, familiar to most students and most importantly, it does not make them apprehensive(11). The limitations of using this method are a low return rate and that the responses may not correspond with actual behavior.

Funding: None.

Competing interests: None stated.