CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS
Should the above-mentioned elements be incorporated in care and support of OVC, individuals and/or communities are not regarded as only clients anymore, rather they are empowered to become active members and gain control over the issues that affect them.
McDonald (1997) highlights the creation of school communities that value all its members as problem solvers and whose development comes from within. The social context in South Africa as is in other countries requires an asset-based approach to early intervention that stresses capacity building and internal control (Cook & Du Toit, 2005). In a certain sense, the role of the SMTs in taking an asset-based approach is essential, and they have a very distinct task to plan resources based on information systems.
There are several key lines of action in response to the challenge of ensuring quality education for OVC. These should be a holistic attempt to address all aspects of the child as a learner and to realise what is best for the child in the learning situation and environment. Key actions for the development of healthy schools include these elements:
• HIV and AIDS educational policies are formulated with a view to generate responses to the issues of OVC. SMTs have to contextualize HIV and AIDS legislations and policies that provide them with guiding principles for their leadership in the cultural/local setting.
• Advocate for support and development of a supportive environment. In order to improve the effectiveness of action to respond to the issues of OVC, a school environment should be supportive of all activities and programmes in relation to OVC. This includes identifying a comprehensive range of services in the schools. SMTs should be seen as part of a team with other educators and learners, this is to avoid overburdening other educators and administrators and thereby weakening the school system. SMTs can make an important contribution by holding educators accountable for fulfilling their roles and responsibilities as explained in the Norms and Standards of Educators (DoE, 2000a).
• It is essential for the SMTs to perceive their role in considering the role of their schools as the organisation that brings together the various agencies that have an impact upon the health of OVC. Some school members may resist action until they can see good reason to be committed to it. Therefore, school HIV policy has to be clear with regard to the processes and systems sensitive to issues of OVC. For example, identifying OVC can follow a system
or process known to every educator. In other words, the role of SMTs is creating foundation for action (Buthelezi, 2008).
• Mobilise existing national resources. SMTs must develop partnerships for care and support for learners orphaned and vulnerable in the school. This involves sectors such as clinics, other schools, child welfare and social security. This would involve collaboration and coordination with other sectors for delivery of services such school feeding, water and sanitation, guidance and counselling to mention but a few. The key aspect here is to draw up a school asset map (SAM), as explained by Ebersohn and Eloff, 2006a, p. 27).
“This is the process of making a graphical representation of identified assets in the system in which the teaching and helping profession is working. This process of making assets ‘visual’ is intended to initiate or ‘kick-start’ the process of asset mobilisation.”
I therefore recommend that the SMTs brainstorm and draw up an asset-map and place it on the notice board so that it is at the disposal of the whole school community.
• This process of developing an asset-map has led to the careful consideration of the implication of choosing an asset-based approach to school intervention for OVC. The participants were not knowledgeable about this approach and therefore constantly reflected on the validity of their actions, getting feedback from one another and identifying gaps. The impulse was to fall back on what is known and what is familiar, and how relevant it is, in responding to the issues of OVC in their school contexts. It is therefore critical that the SMTs, with the principal, create the opportunity to draw on all the assets available in the school and community. Specific action is needed to establish a whole school campaign to build and extend the asset-map, in this instance with regard to responding to OVC.
Although the department requires a ‘list of needy learners’, the school has to keep a database to help monitor and keep track of all the activities. A simple register sheet as proposed by Wood (2008) includes:
• Child name
• Family circumstances
• Specific needs
• Action taken/category of support
• Follow-up
• Person/institute responsible.
A simple database like the above could be the central focus of developing the asset-map, and could influence the direction of the support drawn on.
Referring to the above, an asset-based approach to addressing barriers to learning and development could be included in the professional training of teachers, the in-service development of principals and SMTs, as the theoretical and practical aspects of an asset-based approach are critical for responding to the holistic development of all learners.
The above responds to the themes of the educators perceiving their own initiatives as insignificant, and as uncoordinated, unguided by policy and failing to draw on available assets.
It is also important to engender the notions underpinning the asset-based approach in the educators, encouraging them to see themselves as having agency in their responses to the orphaned and vulnerable learners at school.
5.4 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH