Bold and decisive action is needed to build a firm foundation for learners and teachers to deal with sexuality education, said Deputy Minister of Basic Education Enver Surty on Wednesday.
The Deputy Minister was speaking at the department’s satellite session at the fifth SA Aids Conference at the Durban International Convention Centre. The session covered the Department’s Draft Integrated Strategy on HIV and AIDS, 2012-2016, with a particular focus on Outcome 2 of the Strategy, which calls for sexual and reproductive health education – including HIV to be a mandatory, timetabled and assessed subject delivered in all South African schools.
Addressing the audience, Deputy Minister Surty said that the Conference themes of leadership, delivery and accountability were in line with the Department’s approach to HIV and AIDS.
“In March 2011 the department released our draft HIV and AIDS strategy aligned to the South African government’s plan on the disease,” he said.
“The strategy is aimed at learners, educators and the wider school community and is timely as we upscale our response to HIV.”
Deputy Minister Surty stressed that with 12 million learners and more than 400 000 educators in the South African school system, the education sector is a large population group in danger of being infected or affected by HIV and AIDS.
Thus the schooling system has an advantage in dealing with HIV and AIDS, due to the role it plays in teaching and learning, said the Deputy Minister.
However he added that it is important for the system to take a step back and ask the difficult questions about the sexual education curriculum.
“Does the programme respond to the needs of learners and educators? What works and what needs to be changed? Is the material available developmentally and culturally appropriate to learners’ ages? And what teaching methods are appropriate?” he asked.
“Knowledge and skill building alone cannot turn the tide in the fight against HIV and AIDS,” he added. “It’s not what we teach, but rather how and by whom the HIV curriculum is delivered.”
Deputy Minister Surty said that Life Orientation is currently seen as unimportant but should be drawn to the centre of the Department’s activities to create socially aware and responsible citizens.
“We cannot use the same pedagogy to teach Life Orientation as we do to teach mathematics.”
Delegates at the satellite session also heard from Dr Doug Kirby, a sexual health expert contracted by USAID to advise the Department of Basic Education on Outcome 2 of the Department’s Draft Integrated Strategy on HIV and AIDS, 2012-2016.
Kirby stressed that schools were the “only place where you can reach young people with the hope of changing their sexual behaviour”.
“After reviewing a number of studies from around the world we also concluded that Sex/HIV education programmes do not increase sexual activity and some of these programmes delay initiation of intercourse, reduce unprotected sex and reduce pregnancy and STI rates,” said Kirby.
The review considered 87 studies from around the world including 29 studies from developing countries including South Africa, 47 from the United States and 11 from other developed countries. The monitored programmes had to be curriculum and group based, with a focus primarily on sexual behaviour and with a sample size of at least 100 young people.
He said that studies found that almost all sexual education programmes increased learners’ knowledge, although the link to improved behaviour was weak.
“What we found was that most studies were underpowered, but nearly all of them increased knowledge and helped clarify values and attitudes. The most successful studies though focused narrowly on specific behaviours”.
Source: Department of Education
Time for bold, decisive action on HIV
