Improving the capacity of teachers to teach Family Life and HIV Education (FLHE) in Nigeria through mobile technology: a randomized controlled trial.

Adolescents in Nigeria face several sexual and reproductive health issues, such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. To help address these problems, the government introduced a school program called Family Life and HIV Education (FLHE). This program is meant to provide adolescents with important information and skills to protect their health. However, many teachers do not receive enough training to deliver the curriculum effectively, mostly due to limited resources and the high cost of in-person training. This study tested whether using mobile phone apps could help train teachers more efficiently. We worked with secondary schools in Ibadan-North, Oyo State, and divided them into three groups. One group received in-person training, another used a mobile app for training, and the third group received no training. The study looked at how much teachers learned and how confident they felt about teaching the curriculum. The results showed that both the in-person and mobile app trainings helped teachers improve their knowledge and teaching confidence. However, teachers who used the mobile app were better at retaining what they learned over time compared to the other groups. This suggests that mobile technology can be just as effective as traditional training and possibly even better for long-term learning. It also has the advantage of being easier to scale up, especially in areas with fewer resources. This study supports the use of mobile learning tools to improve how teachers are trained to deliver sexuality education in Nigeria and similar contexts.