A pilot project in the North-West province has shown that peer educators can be more successful than adults when it comes to teaching youngsters sex education, writes Jacqui Pile
While the new policy on HIV/Aids for schools is being lauded for its practical infection control procedures and its focus on the non-discrimination of HIV-positive learners and educators, specialists are criticising its proposals for sex education in schools.
In particular, the use of adult guidance counsellors to teach youngsters about issues of sexuality is seen as flawed.
“If we can’t speak to our mothers about sex, we certainly won’t be able to speak to our teachers about it either,” says Sweetness Wisani, a pupil at Abel Motshoane High School in Shoshanguve, outside Pretoria.
Despite thousands of schoolchildren feeling the same way as Sweetness, the new HIV/Aids policy fails to recognise that current methods of teaching sex education are failing to curtail the spread of the disease among teenagers.
HIV infection has increased by 65% in pregnant girls between 15 and 19 years old, despite the government having trained more than 8 000 guidance teachers up until February 1998 to educate teenagers about the virus.
“Using teachers as sex educators can cause a fatal delay in communication about HIV/Aids,” says David Hirsch, executive director of Splendidly Alive People with Limited Economic Resources (Sapler), an NGO creating HIV/Aids awareness. “They are often older, middle class and reticent to discuss sexual issues openly with youngsters.”
Instead, Hirsch suggests, youth from local communities should be trained and employed to teach sex education in schools.
A pilot project launched in Winterveld in the North-West province has shown that peer educators can be more successful in influencing teenage group norms. Sapler has trained and employed 12 young people to teach at 30 schools in the past two years. Each educator spends about two terms at each school and holds on average about 200 workshops in that time.
“We are impressed by the quality of work of these young educators,” says Mafika Nkosi, principal of Abel Motshoane High School. “It has proved to be more effective if outsiders come to teach about sexuality.”
Lettie Dube, assistant manager of the Sapler pioneer sex education project, funded by the Department of Health, says students respond enthusiastically to her workshops. At 22, she is only a few years older than most of the students in her class. Dube is one of the new township elite, well respected by both the teaching staff and the young people in her community.
“Young girls look up to her as a role model and realise that they have the right to say no, both to pregnancy and HIV,” says Edward Mabunda, the project manager.
Armed with the facts, younger educators facilitate discussion and debate in the classroom.
“Most students realise that Aids is happening right in their communities. They ask questions about Aids out of real concern, not just interest,” says Dube.
Minister of Education Kader Asmal agrees that HIV/Aids education is not only a matter for the guidance teacher. “Our objective is to protect our children’s innocence, and that shouldn’t be left only to the experts.”
With unemployment rife in areas like Shoshanguve, peer education projects will also help to create cost-effective employment for semi-skilled youngsters in the community.
Considering that the government spends about R30 000 to R50 000 on schooling and health for a young child from birth to adulthood, even one death from Aids is a serious waste of government resources. Employing peer educators is, in itself, protecting a social investment.
“Empowering members of the community with work, knowledge, responsibility and income is the way to effect the cultural change so that abstinence, faithfulness and safer sex practices become common knowledge and admired behaviour,” says Hirsch.
But director of legal services and legislation Eben Boshoff defends the new policy.
“The new legislation is not intended to oust NGO involvement,” he says. “It encourages co-ordination between the communities and the formal structures already in place.”
Responding to the issue of adult versus peer educators, he says labour relations is a very sensitive issue that needs to be reflected in the policy.
However, Hirsch claims that civil servants’ interests are being put before an effective solution for adolescent HIV education. “No matter how many teachers are applied to the problem, they are just not getting the message through to young people.”
While this is recognised at a local level, and within some schools, there is a serious lack of communication between provincial and grassroots levels.
“The programme offered by Sapler was undertaken without consultation with the Department of Education. We can therefore not comment on its efficacy,” says Dr A Karodia, deputy director general in the North-West Department of Education.
Karodia says that, while the department is open to criticism, it must be well founded and verifiable. “What objective, empirical evidence exists for the assertion that teachers are not suitable for sex education?”
What seems clear, however, from Uganda, Africa’s only success story in combating Aids, is the need for flexibility and innovation in our own HIV/Aids policy. Having seen a marked decline in infections in teenagers aged 15 to 19, Uganda could serve as a helpful role model.
Dr Sam Okware, director of Uganda’s national Aids programme, said in a recent interview: “There is no blueprint, that’s the most important lesson we’ve learned: if something isn’t working change it.”