The SHARP Programme (Sensible, Healthy and Responsible People)
Project Objective
The independent evaluation made 28 specific recommendations in the course of its analysis of stakeholders’ perceptions and the impact on learners’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour. These appear to meet the shortcomings of the present project and identify realistic desirable outcomes within the parameters of an expanded project . The recommendations, sorted into categories, are as follows:
Objectives for learners' sexuality edu. workshops
· Sapler should use learner’s practical concerns about wanting to know whether potential sexual partners are infected to drive home the point that individuals may have HIV/AIDS or other STDs without any outward signs.
· Sapler should consider somewhat increasing the emphasis on avoiding promiscuity and somewhat reducing the emphasis on abstaining from sex, as learners are likely to experience this as a more realistic message.
· Pioneers should encourage learners to think about sexuality education as an on-going engagement with lifestyle issues rather than a set body of knowledge that can be mastered once and for all
· Sapler should continue to promote abstention as the best form of safe sex while accepting that most learners in the higher grades do engage in sexual activity with others.
· Sapler should specifically inform learners that masturbation is a safe sex practice.
· Sapler should more strongly emphasise the importance of consistent condom use to learners.
· Sapler should specifically teach learners that the family planning injection does not permanently prevent pregnancy and (provided this is so in the area) that pregnancy can be halted after conception.
Objectives for pioneers' training and application
· Pioneers should receive training in referral skills and be encouraged to work actively on setting up and maintaining their own referral network.
· Sapler pioneers should be encouraged to gradually expand the range of lifestyle issues they deal with.
· Sapler should conduct an informal survey among pioneers and selected other stakeholders on pioneers’ most urgent training needs and find ways of responding to these. Particular attention should be given to group work, outcomes-based education and referral techniques.
· Sapler should continue to develop the role of guidance teachers as mentors to pioneers, particularly concentrating on using guidance teachers as sounding boards and points of referral rather than merely formal supervisors.
· Pioneers should be cautiously encouraged to broaden the scope of their teaching and should receive training and support in referral skills.
· Once additional financial resources have been obtained the field office infrastructure should be upgraded.
· Sapler should develop career paths for pioneers.
Objectives for field managers and master trainers' monitoring and research
· Sapler should collect anecdotal information from learners and pioneers on why learners in the area are motivated to start engaging in sexual activities and then use these in pioneers’ teaching.
· Sapler should put systems in place to monitor not only that key concepts have been conveyed, but also the unfolding processes that pioneers have to deal with.
· Sapler should consider producing or procuring attractive information packs for learners possibly including items such pencil boxes, water bottles and stickers. In addition, Sapler should consider structuring pioneers’ teaching activities in such a way that learners produce concrete learning products, e.g. personal files containing their own learning portfolios.
· Sapler should build up a catalogue of local culture, class and gender issues and make this a central point of pioneers’ training and ongoing supervision.
· Sapler should draw up a list of 3 to 5 essential knowledge items with regard to the nature of STDs and AIDS and ensure, through regular monitoring, that all learners know these facts. These should include that AIDS is an incurable condition and that STDs and HIV/AIDS may remain undetected for some time.
Objectives for partnership' liaison, placement and funding
· Sapler should continue to explore the possibility of twinning schools with clinics in consultation with relevant stakeholders.
· The minimum length of stay of pioneers at schools should be one year and Sapler should explore the possibility of permanent placements. Changes in placement should be planned well in advance and discussed with pioneers, guidance teachers and principals.
· Sapler should attempt to negotiate more regular and fixed timeslots for pioneers. The change to outcomes-based education provides a window of opportunity for renegotiating the timetable.
· Sapler should attempt to become an official part of the education department’s sexuality education strategy.
· Sapler should take urgent steps to place its funding on a more regular footing. In particular, it should attempt to be officially funded and sponsored by the education or health departments.
Objectives for stakeholders' new strategies
· Sapler should continue to encourage open discussion of rape and other forms of sexual coercion among learners and should develop interventions aimed at counteracting coercive sex specifically aimed at learners in the lower grades who have not yet had sex.
· Sapler should develop specific strategies for dealing with the issue of boys’ endorsement of male promiscuity.
· Sapler should develop specific strategies for dealing with the disjunction between many learners’ professed opposition to promiscuity and their actual promiscuous behaviour.
· Sapler should seek to understand why a substantial minority of learners want to become pregnant despite rejecting pregnancy in the abstract, and should develop ways of engaging with such learners.