Flexible education tackles HIV in southern Africa

‘Business as usual’ will not meet the education challenges of the HIV epidemic in Mozambique and South Africa. Governments must radically rethink education delivery to out-of-school youth. Research by the UK Institute of Education looks at how open, distance and flexible learning (ODFL) can reduce the effects of HIV on young people.

The HIVemergency in southern Africa threatens development, social cohesion,political stability, food security, life expectancy and economic growth.Communities and the education sector are reaching the limits of their capacityto cope with the needs of children affected by HIV. ODFL has the potential to:

• increaseaccess to education
• improvequality of schooling (and thereby child survival and family health)
• raisepublic awareness and advocacy for health initiatives
• spread health information and encourage healthybehaviours.

How shouldgovernments further develop ODFL to help meet the needs of affected youth? Thisstudy examines HIV/AIDS ODFL initiatives in Mozambique and South Africa. Document reviews, case studies andqualitative field data, including interviews and discussions with informantsand young people reveal that:

• In bothcountries the Education Ministries focus on delivering basic education throughschools, by developing HIV/AIDS and life-skills curricula and trainingteachers. There is little provision for increasing numbers of children who cannotattend school.
• In South Africa, ODFL primarily relies on televisioncampaigns and media strategies, such as Soul City, loveLife and Khomanani. These produce better knowledge, awareness and attitudesabout HIV/AIDS and, to a lesser degree, behaviour change.
• SouthAfrican universities have developed specialised distance education initiativesfor training and development of education, health, counsellingand HIV/AIDS professionals.
• In Mozambique, major government HIV/AIDS programmes(My Future My Choice and Geração Biz) use mostlyface-to-face delivery and train peer educators to reach out-of-school youth. Geração Biz also uses a range of ODFL materials.
• Mozambique’s Secondary Education through DistanceEducation (SEDE) project is developing a set of ODFL materials forout-of-school youth.

The study foundthat HIV/AIDS-affected young people need more opportunity to develop literacyskills and undertake vocational training. They are most easily reached by radioand particularly like to learn through music, drama and stories.

The authorsconclude that to confront AIDS and meet Millennium Development Goals incountries with high HIV rates, governments must transform the education systemto deliver education more flexibly and to empower young people to help movetheir communities towards the post-AIDS era. They recommend using ODFL to:

• deliverthe national curriculum to those out of school
• promotecritical thinking, positive group identity and solidarity among young people
• develop,coordinate and disseminate the knowledge base on HIV/AIDS at the national level
• improveteachers’ ability to empathise with young people affected by HIV/AIDS andprovide psychosocial guidance and counselling
• give young heads of households access toinformation, psychosocial support, training on business skills and careerscounselling.