RE-EVALUATING HIV AND AIDS PROGRAMMES IN EASTERN CAPE SCHOOLS


WEB ABSTRACT

Eastern Cape youth are disproportionately vulnerable to and affected by HIV and Aids. Not only is the pandemic spreading faster in this province than elsewhere in the country, the prevalence of HIV among the youth is now higher than among adults in the province.

In light of this, provincial schools should be at the forefront of empowering their educators and learners to effectively and efficiently target not only the rate of infection, but also the impact the pandemic has on learners and their communities.

However, a groundbreaking baseline study into the pandemic in local schools – carried out by the Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research (FHISER) on behalf of the Eastern Cape Department of Education (ECDoE) – paints an alarming picture of ongoing vulnerability, risk and implementation failure in these institutions.

Despite the adoption by the ECDoE of an ambitious and comprehensive HIV and Aids Strategic Plan, the strategies outlined in this Plan are not being implemented at either district or school level.

This is caused largely by institutional problems such as staff shortages and lack of resources. However, there is also widespread evidence of poor management and ineffective implementation strategies, underpinned by a worrying degree of mis-prioritisation and, in some cases, attitudinal problems among district managers, principals and educators.

Specifically, principals and teachers are failing to properly mainstream or integrate HIV and Aids education across all learning areas in schools, a prominent objective of the Strategic Plan. The intention of the Strategic Plan is for HIV and Aids education to be fully and meaningfully integrated across all learning areas in schools. This, however, is not happening. In fact, researchers conclude, “it appears that the term integration is not fully understood by many educators and what is viewed as integration is frequently superficial and forced.”

In the majority of schools, HIV and Aids education occur during lifeskills and life orientation lessons, and are thus not included in the Further Education and Training Band (FET) curriculum. Consequently, none of the schools surveyed had dedicated directorates for the monitoring and management of HIV and Aids, a serious shortcoming in developing effective interventions at individual school level.

In addition, schools are not succeeding in empowering a wide range of stakeholders in the fight against the pandemic. Intervention strategies, where they do exist, tend to involve a small number of teachers only, with little or no cross-over or intersectoral impact.

In attempting to develop an effective set of policies and programmes to address HIV and Aids issues in education, roleplayers have to recognise that the pandemic affects communities at multiple levels, researchers note. Therefore, HIV and Aids cannot be effectively addressed in schools alone. “A major challenge in relation to creating more effective interventions in this field is how well schools and school-related bodies are able to intersect with other community structures and organisations.”

In light of this, the lack of extra-mural or community-based programmes being offered at school is an area of considerable concern. For example, while strengthening co-ordination and partnerships with government, social partners and civil society is a specific priority of ECDoE's HIV and Aids Strategic Plan, none of the schools surveyed during the course of the FHISER study observed National Aids Day.

Schools, in turn, report feeling under-supported by district managers and the provincial education department. “Although there appears to be some support from ECDoE,” the study notes, “this is seen as being sporadic and insufficient and the vast majority of schools communicated the need for increased support from both the ECDoE and the national Department of Education with regard to HIV and Aids and lifeskills education.”

The main focus of ECDoE's implementation strategy thusfar has been the establishment of a series of workshops for districts and schools, aimed at capacitating educators and learners to deal with HIV and Aids within their schools. However, only or two educators per school have benefited from these workshops. And while government intends these educators to disseminate information and workshop materials to other educators and to learners in their schools, this is not happening. “It is felt that this increased responsibility and pressure on educators, who are already over-extended in their workload, has affected commitment levels and very little of the implementation skills learned in workshops have been carried out in schools,” the report notes.

Against this backdrop, learners – despite also having, for the most part, specific and/or appropriate knowledge of what HIV is and how the virus spread – report an overwhelming sense of disempowerment in the face of the epidemic. “Learners were nearly all in agreement that very little was done about offering HIV and Aids awareness programmes at schools,” the study found. “At some schools there was very little education about HIV and Aids and many of the schools seem to rely on ‘outsiders' to assist them in educating their learners.” Consequently, while learners are generally well informed with regard to HIV and Aids, and while their attitudes and values surrounding the pandemic may be changing, behaviour is not.

Thus, while basic awareness of most aspects of HIV and Aids appears to be adequate in schools, with many of the respondents knowing how to prevent infection, and indeed to live with HIV and Aids, the implementation of this knowledge into skills, behaviours and attitudes which are practiced daily by all, is extremely far from being realised.

Key findings

The Eastern Cape Department of Education's HIV and Aids policy has not proven effective in meetings its aims and objectives. This has been caused by a number of inter-related factors, including:

• While there is widespread awareness around the HIV pandemic among educators and district managers, few effective policies or interventions are filtering down to the level of individual schools;
• Very few schools have developed their own HIV and Aids policies;
• HIV and Aids education has not been successfully integrated across all learning areas in schools;
• Schools experience severe shortages of staff and physical resources, which limits effectiveness of HIV and Aids policy planning and implementation;
• There are no mechanisms in place to assess the extent to which HIV and Aids issues and education are being integrated into the broader curriculum;
• There are limited processes in place to assess how information disseminated at workshops is being fed back to schools, and the broader community;
• While attitudes and values around HIV and Aids may be changing, behaviour is not;
• Gender issues are not addressed in HIV and Aids prevention strategies; and
• High levels of sexual abuse appear to be occurring in some communities, including schools, with some claims of widespread abuse involving teachers.

Recommendations

Current policies and implementation strategies have clearly not had the desired effect of either reducing the number of new HIV infections, or adequately and effectively addressing the social and socio-economic needs of young people affected by the pandemic. It is therefore necessary to critically re-evaluate ways in which the goals of the ECDE's HIV and Aids Strategic Plan can be actualised.

Specific recommendations in this regard include:

• The value of workshops in disseminating HIV and Aids information should be revisited. If this is still found to be the most efficient and effective method, workshops should be expanded to include all stakeholders, including learners and communities.
• Centralised financial controls and procurement policies should be re-evaluated.
• Additional resources should be made available to employ more educators dedicated to implementing HIV and Aids programmes.
• The state should play a constructive role in facilitating more intersectoral communication, for example, all HIV and Aids programmes in schools need to be twinned with programmes in the community at large.
• School HIV and Aids programmes should be broadened to stretch across the entire curriculum.
• Gender issues should feature centrally in all HIV and Aids policy planning.
• The content of HIV and Aids training material should be examined to include policies and issues of disclosure and discrimination.
• Clear channels should be established for reporting and dealing with abuse.
• Policymakers should establish who the home- and community-based carers are for orphaned children, and what resources they have.
• The school nutrition programme should be expanded.
• Emphasis should shift from advocacy to implementation, monitoring and support.
• There should be greater collaboration between government departments on HIV and Aids lifeskills education in schools.
• Policies that focus solely on abstinence and safe sex should be re-examined with a view to be expanded to also include many aspects of response to the disease, including treatment, care, support and rights.

About the study

The FHISER baseline study was carried out in 15 schools across four Eastern Cape educational districts. Within each school, the principal or a senior representative, two members of the SGB, five educators and eight learners were interviewed, either individually or in focus groups.

The study set out to establish which programmes and interventions have been adopted in schools in the Eastern Cape with regard to HIV and Aids and lifeskills programmes. It also sought to identify specific strategies which are being pursued, as well as to isolate the most pressing challenges for educators, learners and Eastern Cape Department of Education officials in this regard.

This would allow researchers to provide key baseline qualitative data for understanding and measuring the efficacy, efficiency and functioning of HIV and Aids programmes in the province.

Access the full research report by clicking HERE.