Assessing the Impact of Teachers' Training on Teaching HIV/AIDS Education in Schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract

School-based HIV/AIDS education is a common and well-proven intervention strategy for providing information on HIV/AIDS to young people in South African schools. However, lack of skills among teachers for imparting sensitive information to students can lead to program failure in terms of achieving goals. A cross-sectional study was conducted among teachers to identify the factors that support or hinder their role in HIV/AIDS education. A self-administered questionnaire was used for interviewing teachers from stratified randomly-selected 2 primary and 2 secondary schools in the province of KwaZulu-Natal’s Pietermaritzburg region. Out of the 4 selected schools, 2 are on an HIV/AIDS education intervention program under Community Care Project (NGO) while the other 2 selected schools are not (control). This was meant to compare the teachers’ ability, skill, and their participation in HIV/AIDS education between the intervention and control selected schools. Trained teachers in the intervention schools were more likely to participate, less likely to face difficulties, and more likely to use interactive teaching methods in HIV/AIDS classes compared to the controls who did not receive any training. Inadequate allocation of time for conducting the HIV/AIDS class was found to be barriers to HIV/AIDS education that suggest the need to provide teachers with more support in terms of training and logistics.