Embedded Files
PAGE 5
• Seeks out learners, particularly children and adolescents affected or infected by HIV and AIDS. This may require working with their families and communities to help nurture a supportive environment. Above all, education needs to be attractive to engage and maintain learners.
• Acknowledges what the learner brings such as previously uncommon experiences and backgrounds which may both enhance and/or hinder his/her and others’ learning. These could include family or in-come-generating responsibilities or psychological trauma, increased poverty and/or diminished health status.
• Considers the content of formal and non-formal learning to include appropriate and relevant education about HIV and AIDS that is age- and sex-specifi c. New approaches to content and curricula must provide effective teaching on HIV transmission and prevention, including nego-iation and decision-making skills to help young people avoid unwanted sex or unsafe situations, and ad-dressing sensitive issues such as sex and sexuality. This also provides a window of opportunity to improve school health programming and introduce educational programmes on anti-retroviral therapy (ART).
• Enhances learning processes to ensure children and adults are equipped with the knowledge, values, capacities and behaviours to take decisions that are in the best interest of themselves and others. Stigma and discrimination must be addressed so that all learners have the same possibility to learn, regardless of sex, age, religion, HIV status, sexual orientation or family background.
• Provides a conducive learning environment through a rights-based framework that provides effective responses to pervasive forms of violence, establishes hygiene and sanitation facilities available to all and, if possible, health and nutrition services in the vicinity. The environment should be open and facilitate effective teaching.
At the level of the learning system, the paper recommends that education systems promote quality education which:
• Structures management and ad-ministration to support learning, with ‘upstream’ policy frameworks, strong leadership and sustained advocacy. Well-run schools and other learning spaces that are open, trans-parent and
flexible provide a foundation to address difficult issues. Teachers and others in the education system who are affected or infected by HIV also need safe, secure and supportive environments.
• Implements relevant and appropriate policies addressing issues of inclusion and discrimination. These may include, for example, a code of conduct for teachers and disciplinary procedures for sexual relationships between teachers and students. Such policies should be publicised as well as have mechanisms to implement and enforce them, with teachers and students being involved in setting and respecting them.
• Promotes the establishment of legislation supportive to learning, with legal frameworks covering all aspects of the relationship between HIV and AIDS and education systems– to ensure the right of education for all. Equity concerns should be addressed, possibly through legally-initiated affirmative action.
• Restructures resources for learning– whether they be financial, personnel and/or time. From the ministry to the school level, resources will be needed for reviewing, updating, disseminating and implementing relevant policies, along with the means to monitor and assess their effectiveness.
• Measures learning outcomes, being aware of their multifaceted nature (i.e. knowledge, skills or competencies, values or behaviours). A number of systems already exist, although the challenge remains to work towards a system which is fair and does not make it possible to label or discriminate against those affected or infect-ed by HIV.
Google Sites
Report abuse