EDUCATION PROGRAMME
THEME 1: Appraising the Content of the Life-skills and HIV/AIDS Education Programme Taught in the Classroom
1.1 Positive Lessons Learnt
Writers such as Van Dyk (2001, 2005), Strydom (2003), Harrison (2002, 2005) and Sewpaul and Raniga (2005) contend that HIV/AIDS education should be an ongoing process and that a single awareness programme is insufficient as practical life-skills such as negotiation, communication, problem solving and assertiveness is necessary. Van Dyk (2001, 2005) added that it is important to have continuity as information and skills need to be reinforced in order to prevent HIV infection and help young persons make better and safer sexual choices. It was positive to note that the Department of Education's life-skills, HIV/AIDS education programme has taken cognisance of this as the programme has included both theoretical and practical life-skills sessions.
Overall learners had very positive views about the integration of the life-skills, HIV/AIDS programme in the school curriculum.
The following extracts illustrate some of the positive views expressed by the learners during the workshop sessions:
The programme is valuable and it is good that it is taught in the classroom. We need to learn about life-skills as we don't think about whetheraperson is infected during sexual intercourse
I think it is OK when they teach us about HIVIAIOS because if we didn't know we were going to have sex withouta condom
The life-skills programme gives us a different view of life and the right choices we must make in the future
The information we are exposed to about HIVIAIOS changes our behaviour like to abstain from sex and drug abuse and respect other people
It helped me to take decisions to abstain and not have sex before marriage.
Those who are sexually active now know how to protect themselves using a condom
I am responsible for my body and I must protect myself
I am able to understand HIV and what it does to people
Yes, we now know what we're getting ourselves into and can make our own choices, without saying but I don't know
The sentiments expressed by the learners concur with the findings of studies conducted by Jameson and Glover (1993), Strydom and Strydom (2006) and by Coyle, Kirby and Parcel (1999) who confirmed the value of HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention programmes implemented with adolescents. The findings also confirm what Zambuko and Mturi (2005) revealed in their survey of sexual risk behaviour among the youth that being in school or having at least a secondary education reduces the risks of sexual behaviour among both male and female youth.
Moreover, it was interesting that some learners had stated that "Those who are sexually active now know how to protect themselves using a condom". This finding may be related to research undertaken by Gyarmathy, Thomas and Mikl (2002), Coyle, Kirby and Parcel (1999), Strydom (2003) and the University of Witwatersrand's Reproductive Health Research Unit (Pretoria News 7 April 2004), which revealed that while there was little evidence that young people are abstaining from sex or waiting until they were older to have sex, the use of condoms was significantly higher. A quantitative study undertaken by Zambuko and Mturi (2005) which analysed data from surveys conducted during 1999 to 2001 of the 'Transitions to Adulthood in the Context of AIDS in South Africa' revealed that youth who were in a stable relationship and sometimes or rarely used condoms put them at higher risk of being infected. Additionally those youth who had multiple partners and who sometimes or rarely used condoms were regarded as being at higher risk.
Learners at the urban informal school shared that the following sessions in the programme were helpful to them: puberty and the adolescence phase, information on prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, protection and safer sex practices and the session on assertiveness to say no to sex. At the urban formal school, learners expressed the view that the sessions on safer sex practices, the ABC of prevention of the disease, universal precaution and infection control were most valuable. However, learners at the rural school questioned the practical application of these universal precautions when they don't have access to basic services such as clean running water and cleaning materials. Clearly, the disparity of access to resources and basic services between the urban formal school and rural school impacted on the effective implementation of the programme. This confirms one of the recommendations made by the 2005 survey commissioned by Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) and conducted by HSRC and MRC for improvement of allocation of resources to poorer schools such as those in the urban informal and rural areas.
Chapters Five and Six provided detail about the difficulties that schools experience to operationalise both the Policy and NIP programme when the
socio-economic and structural factors affecting schools are ignored by government. The arguments presented in these chapters provide further evidence of how the commodification of education through the expansion of neoliberalism has impacted the institutional capacity at schools and limited the implementation of the National Life-skills and HIV/AIDS School-based Policy.
Moreover, with the decreased engagement of the state in the provision of basic services and resources in the urban informal and rural areas, Stromquist (2002) argues that most learners from the poor and disadvantaged communities are provided low quality services, resulting in an ever widening gap in educational attainment between the rich and poor within societies.
An interesting comment made by some learners at the urban formal school was on the teaching methods used to impart the content of the programme. They stated that the use of small group interactive discussions and use of case studies with mixed gender groups were helpful. They commented that this made a difference to students contributing actively to the discussions during the sessions. The study conducted by Strydom (2003) with 999 Grade 10 learners in the North West Province also revealed that the vast majority of learners preferred interactive, mixed boys and girls groups for the sessions on sexuality and HIV/AIDS. This was however, different to the challenges and problems experienced by learners in both the rural and urban informal schools where the lack of space in the classroom had a direct bearing on the atmosphere which was perceived as a hindrance to learners participating actively during the session discussions. This further reiterates the argument put forth in Chapter Six of this thesis that the institutional resources and capacity at schools need to be taken into consideration when teaching this programme in the classroom.