Number of young people trained as peer educators

Number of young people trained as peer educators

Number of young people trained as peer educators

This output level indicator measures the number of young people (10-24) who have completed a training course in adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) peer education. An individual should only be counted after they have completed the training. Individuals that are mid-way through a training course should be counted in the next reporting period. Individuals attending more than one peer education training during a reporting period should be counted only once.

Data Requirement(s):

Number of persons trained (based on an actual list of names for potential verification purposes) and training topic. Data can be disaggregated by gender, in school/out of school and urban/rural residence.

If targeting and/or linking to inequity, classify trainees by areas served (poor/not poor) and disaggregate by area served.

Evaluators may want to disaggregate by the following age ranges: 10-14, 15-19, and 20-24.

Training sign-in sheets, training reports, program reports

This indicator serves as a crude measure of peer educator training programs.  Evaluators can use it for determining whether a program/project meets its training target and/or for tracking progress from one year to the next. When aggregated, it also represents human resource potential of peer educators who could assist in carrying out AYSRH education programs.

Peer education is the process whereby well-trained and motivated young people undertake informal and organized educational activities with peers who are similar in age, background or interests (UNAIDS 1999). Peer educators often serve as role models, demonstrating to their peers behaviors that promote risk-reduction. It is generally used in conjunction with other strategies such as media campaigns, youth-friendly services to reach young people with information and skills (Population Council 2000).

Peer education training consists of technical areas of SRH, as well as training methodologies, personal skills and confidence building (Pfiffner, 2005).

Because this indicator does not capture the number of participants who become active peer educators it should be used in conjunction with Percent of young people trained as peer educators who are active during a reference period.  Furthermore, it does not indicate knowledge gained or what the quality of the training was.

Evaluators can further improve the measure in several ways:

  • Expressing the number of trainees as the percent of the number scheduled for training in a given year;
  • Expressing the number of trainees as a percent of the estimated number needed to be trained to fill a national program mandate, determined through a systematic needs assessment prior to the initiation of training activities; and
  • Expressing the number successfully completing the course as a percent of the total that enroll in the course.

training, adolescent

Peer educator trainees can vary substantially by age and sex and evaluators should disaggregate data accordingly. Strategies to increase retention of a particular age bracket or sex may be necessary based on the results of this indicator.

In addition, if used with Percent of young people trained as peer educators who are active during a reference period, gender aggregated data from both indicators can help look at trends in training and subsequent retention of active peer educators.

Further, a gender perspective on evaluating training is available in the indicator Number of trainees by type of personnel and topic of training.

Adamchak SE. Youth Peer Education in Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS: Progress, Process, and Programming for the Future, 2006. Family Health International, YouthNet Program (Youth Issues Paper 7).

Population Council Horizons Project, 2000. Peer Education and HIV/AIDS: Past Experience, Future Directions.

UNAIDS, 1999. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Peer education and HIV/AIDS: Concepts, uses and challenges. UNAIDS Best Practice Collection;UNAIDS/99.46E.

Pfiffner S editor 2005. Youth Peer Education Toolkit: Training of Trainers Manual. Second ed. New York, NY: United Nations Population Fund.

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