Impact Evaluation of a School-Based Sexuality and HIV-Prevention Education Activity in South Africa: Midline Results
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Author(s): MEASURE Evaluation
Year: 2018
Young people in South Africa, especially young women, are at high risk of acquiring HIV. Gaining the knowledge and skills necessary to make healthy choices about sexual behavior as adolescent learners transition to young adulthood is key to controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic and reducing its potentially devastating effects. The South Africa Department of Basic Education (DBE) has attempted to attenuate the impact of HIV/AIDS on the nation through its Life Orientation (LO) curriculum, which has been in place since 2000. In 2015, the DBE and the Education Development Center (EDC), with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), invested in developing and piloting scripted lesson plans and supportive activities to increase the rigor and uniformity of the LO curriculum. Before rolling it out nationally, the DBE and USAID tasked MEASURE Evaluation with conducting an impact evaluation of the activity in two South African provinces.
Our 2016 baseline findings are reported here. This working paper summarizes the main findings of the midline data collection and analysis. We make some comparisons with the baseline here but will defer most of these until we report on our end line findings from the 2018 data collection. Access a related brief.