1. LSE Curriculum in Swaziland (with components on ASRH/HIV/Health & Career Guidance) Southern Sun O.R. Tambo - Johannesburg, South Africa 17-20 November 2014 Lindiwe Nana Dlamini Director-ETGPS; Ministry of Education & Training, Swaziland

2. Presentation Outline  A description of the activity  Achievements  Challenges  Opportunities/Emerging Issues  Key lessons learnt

3. A description of the Activity  It’s a program & policy of scaling up Life Skill based ASRH in Swazi Secondary Schools through a structured process of a curriculum.  Aims at helping learners at secondary school level of education to gain comprehensive knowledge and life skills in order to create behaviour change to better deal with everyday challenges including HIV  The LSE based ASRH sessions are highly interactive.  The teacher is a facilitator allowing horizontal and vertical interactions guided by lesson plan.

4. Description continued  It is an innovation that does not closely follow the usual way of implementing a new curriculum. This was necessitated by the emergency situation imposed by the HIV pandemic.  The piloting of a subject in school is usually done in stages (one class per year) & the piloting of the LSE curriculum is being done at the same time for all five levels and the roll out to 100 secondary schools in the country will be done in 2015.  Subject in schools are designed and delivered to learners according to the levels.

5. Achievements  Meeting for senior management that resulted in further commitment for the strengthening of LSE/CSE & ASRHR  The creation of the LSE subject panel  The creation of technical working groups that worked diligently on developing the LSE syllabus and teachers handbook.  Capacity building of curriculum designers on developing age appropriate, relevant and culturally sensitive CSE curriculum and scripted lesson plans following the international guidelines

6. Achievements  Piloting of LSE/CSE & ASRHR in 25 Swazi Secondary schools.  Pilot and evaluation report to inform scaling up  The presentation and approval of the handbook by panel & CCC ( to be presented on Nov 27)  The development of Cabinet Paper that will demonstrate country’s commitment to the ESA CSE Ministerial Commitment  Establishment of the CSE/ASRHR TWG-multisectoral and has UN family members, NGOs

7. Challenges  Training alone is not enough and requires further coaching and ongoing mentoring and support for success  There is no implementation framework for the Education Sector Policy  CSE & ASRHR seen as subordinate to more ‘cognitive’ subjects

8. Challenges cont…..  Teacher and curriculum overload  Class size  Reduction in educational funding translates into difficulty in securing resources to establish curricula, train teachers and provide materials  Weak systems for monitoring and evaluation/supervision  Teacher competence in delivery of subject matter and comfort level

9. Opportunities/Emerging Issues  There is a education sector policy which calls for action around these issues  There is an opportunity to measure these interventions as we have an EMIS unit that is ready to incorporate these issues.  This activity, while it maybe placed under one CSTL pillar but it has components that address more than one CSTL pillar.

10. Key Lessons Learnt  Considerations of local settings is important and using positive social norms to push the agenda  Involvement of parents through dialogues can ensure effective implementation.  Effective training first has to have an impact on the teachers themselves, helping them examine their own attitudes toward sexuality, gender and behaviours regarding HIV prevention, understand the content they are teaching, learn participatory teaching skills

11. Key Lessons Learnt  LSE based ASRH curriculum needs the support of national ministries, school management, and local communities  Choose an intervention/approach that can be scaled up within existing systems  Clarify the aims of scaling up and the roles of different players and ensure local/national ownership/lead role  Disseminate data on the effectiveness of pilot programmes before scaling up

12. SIYABONGA Can We Have Comments & Questions From The Floor & Other Panellists.