TRAINING FOR LIFE:An EI Report: Teacher Training on HIV/AIDS

The Role of Teachers in the Education Sector Response to HIV and AIDS.

However, the real value of HIV and AIDS education lies beyond the transfer of knowledge.
Life skills should be an essential component of teacher training so that, at the end of the
day, they are equipped to teach students crucial competencies and not just the facts.
Communication and decision making skills, learning how to assert yourself and how to cope
with stress should all feature strongly within HIV/AIDS education programmes. Here we
note that the record of governments is somewhat better. In most of the countries surveyed
where pre- and in-service training has actually taken place, the sessions have included
elements of both knowledge and life skills. Still the duration of this training varies widely
from country to country. To have full effect training sessions must be carried out intensively
and be repeated periodically.
Consultation is another issue. The contemporary rhetoric of the international community on
good governance revolves around the concept of the inclusion of, the consultation of, the
creation of space for civil society organisations to interact on key decision making areas.
Unfortunately the message does not seem to be penetrating the walls of the Ministries of
Education in the countries mentioned here. The large majority of the teachers unions
reported that they were rarely, if ever consulted on the education sector response to HIV
and AIDS. Furthermore on the rare occasion when teachers were consulted, such happened
after a long process of intensive lobbying. Hardly any Government in the countries
concerned has taken the initiative to invite union representatives to map out strategies,
policies and programmes. EI takes the view that failing to involve unions or systematically
ignoring their views weakens the response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic.
Not being involved in policy making is one issue. But not being in a position to influence the
use of funds allocated to the education response to HIV and AIDS is also a problem. Do
unions have insight into the amount of funds being spent on the prevention of HIV/AIDS via
the education sector or where these funds are being allocated? The unions, without
exception, responded that they are being kept in the dark.
Therefore EI and its affiliated unions call upon the national education authorities to consult
teachers on these matters including amongst others the use and the content of materials.
At present there are too many diverse messages being propagated, often conflicting
because of different donor views. This needs to be addressed with the help of the
Education and Health Ministries.
EI strongly supports the position taken in the Readiness Survey which states that there is a
“need to elevate HIV/AIDS, sexuality and lifeskills education” which “should form an integral
part of all teacher preparation programmes3”. EI’s survey shows that until today such an
approach is lacking in the vast majority of countries. Governments give off a far too sunny
picture of the reality, donor agencies intervene adding their own conditions and demands. At
the end of the day the result is negative for the classroom teacher who is not getting the
pre- and in-service training needed to do the work properly and professionally.
On this basis, EI calls for immediate changes, including:
Ø The inclusion of unions in policy making and the mapping out of the HIV and AIDS
training programmes;
Ø Immediate institutionalisation of long term and wide scale pre- and in-service
training on HIV/AIDS for the teaching community;
Ø Focusing pre- and in-service training on life skills;