Life skills-based HIV and sexuality education: teacher training and teaching
Export Indicator
To assess progress towards implementation of life skills-based HIV and sexuality education in all schools by teachers who are trained in the subject area.
Life skills-based HIV and sexuality education is an effective methodology that uses participatory exercises to teach behaviours to young people that help them deal with the challenges and demands of everyday life. It is important that teachers who provide this subject should be trained in the appropriate methodologies and the content to be covered.
This indicator combines issues of provision of life skills-based HIV and sexuality education as part of the curriculum, as well as considering the training of those offering the curriculum. These are critical issues for the education sector to review and monitor.
This indicator provides a focus on the proportion of schools that are offering life skills-based HIV and sexuality education and considers which of those schools have teachers who have received some training to offer the subject. Again, by looking at teacher preparation, an attempt is made to improve the quality of the nature of the knowledge provided to the students.
Principals/heads of schools (to include both private and public schools) are briefed on the meaning of life skillsbased HIV and sexuality education, and the training required for teachers to provide the course (including pre- and in-service training), and then are asked the following question: How many teachers in your school who received training also taught lessons in life skills-based HIV and sexuality education in the previous academic year?
Calculated as a percentage:
Numerator
Number of schools where at least one trained teacher taught lessons in life skills-based HIV and sexuality education in the previous academic year.
Denominator
Number of schools surveyed.
Collection method
School-based surveys or EMIS Annual School Census questionnaire.
Disaggregation
The indicator should be presented as a separate percentage for:
■ Sex of teachers: male and female
■ Private/independent and public/state schools
■ Level of education: primary and secondary
■ Geographical location: urban, rural and peri-urban.
Interpretation
It is important that life skills-based HIV and sexuality education be initiated in the early grades of primary school (pre-primary) and then continued throughout schooling with contents and methods being adapted to the age and experience of the students. Where schools provide both primary and secondary education, teachers should have been trained to teach life skills-based HIV and sexuality education at each of these levels. It is impossible to establish a universal standard for the minimum number of trained teachers in life skills-based HIV and sexuality education per school, as the mode of delivering HIV and sexuality education varies significantly across countries: as a standalone subject, integrated with carrier subjects, or infused across subjects, for example.
The minimum number of trained teachers also depends on the school size. This indicator is therefore a measure of coverage of schools only, with the expectation that every school should have at least one trained teacher who teaches life skills-based HIV and sexuality education. The indicator does not measure the qualitative dimensions of teacher training. Ultimately the desirable coverage of schools should be 100 per cent, although countries can set a realistic target lower than 100 per cent for a given period of time.
Education stakeholders should link the analysis of the data for this indicator with Indicator No. 3 in the Guidelines (percentage of schools that provided life skills-based HIV and sexuality education in the previous academic year), to examine the equation between these two indicators. If the percentage of schools providing life skills-based HIV and sexuality education is high but the percentage of schools with trained teachers teaching the programme is low, it suggest that the programme was not taught by trained teachers in some schools, which may present a concern with the quality of the teaching.
Comparison with data from previous years (if available) should be made to determine if and how much progress has been made, or if a satisfactory level of coverage has been sustained.
Biennial
Strengths:
■ The indicator was field tested.
■ The indicator provides a good measure of coverage, considering which schools have provided life skills-based HIV and sexuality education at the minimum required levels and have some teachers trained to offer the curriculum.
Weaknesses:
■ The indicator does not measure the number of teachers available at school level or consider the load or quality of individual teachers – so one teacher may be overburdened to cover all the grades and classes.
■ The indicator does not measure the quality of teacher training in this area.
■ www.unicef.org/lifeskills/index-hiv-aids.htmil
■ www.unicef.org/aids/ index_documents.html
■ International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education
(http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001832/183281e.pdf )