Summary and Highlights of the 2014 Sharing Meeting Southern Sun O.R. Tambo - Johannesburg, South Africa November 2014

Day 1 – Tuesday 18 November 14

Key Note Speakers  Positive change in the sub-Sahara Africa region – be part of that change  Parents should not abdicate their responsibilities – the school cannot do it alone (community/parental involvement  Parents are also vulnerable and need support

CSTL and SADC Development Goals  Education is the key to social, political and economic development of the SADC region  CSTL and the SADC Minimum Package of Services fight barriers that prevent positive education outcomes  CSTL support SADC Minimum Package of Services and SADC goals; so CSTL promotes SADC development goals

Journey of the CSTL Model  CSTL is a SADC programme adopted by SADC Ministers  The journey of CSTL depends on champions – many of them are in this room  We are now in a new phase – be the champion in this phase

Mainstreaming CSTL into Education Policy  Inclusive education is a special partner of CSTL – Angola  There are many programmes that are not called CSTL, but have CSTL characteristics and goals – School Plus in Mauritius  Poor teacher skills is are a critical barrier to education outcomes – teacher development needs special attention but is often neglected in CSTL programming - Botswana

CSTL Structures  The CSTL National Coordinating Unit needs to bring together the non-governmental actors and government departments/ministries together for it to be effective -DRC  School Support Teams are an important form of community involvement and community ownership of CSTL – involve + empower them - Zambia  Parental and community involvement are crucial in creating an enabling environment for positive education outcomes – Mauritius Community Mobilisation

Gallery and Networking

Day 2 – Wednesday 19 November 14

School Health Programmes  Sexual reproductive health programmes need to be supported by communities + consider local settings to push the agenda – dialogue with parents and communities – Swaziland  Considerations of local settings is important and using positive social norms to push the agenda  There is need for much stronger collaboration between Health and Education Ministries for positive health/education outcomes in schools - Seychelles

Health and HIV/AIDS  Donor funding for HIV and AIDS is soon going to run out – we need to ensure sustainability – SADC  Know your niche in the HIV/AIDS response - SADC  Reducing HIV among adolescents – we need to think about sustainability of incentives through government funding – Angola  Incentives to reduce HIV need to be targeted e.g. girls who have particular vulnerabilities – Namibia  The HIV and AIDS response needs a clear national school-level strategy with clear targets - Angola

School Water and Sanitation  We need to document cultural and other barriers to optimal water and sanitation responses in our schools and communities - SADC  Before a bar or restaurant is licenced, there are rules on basic sanitation – why do we let schools be built without ensuring safe water and sanitation for our children?! - Namibia  “We don’t eat shit!” – shock, shame and disgust through Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) - Tanzania

Psychosocial Care and Support  While in-service psychosocial support training is important, there is need to phase this out by ensuring pre-service training in education – REPSSI  There is need to consider time-tabling of psychosocial issues in schools so that there is adequate time to address issues- Zambia

Monte Casino Outing

Day 3 – Thursday 20 November 14

Material and Nutrition  Cash transfers are an important mechanism for dealing a multiplicity of poverty related barriers. Close collaboration between ministries of education and ministries of social development/welfare is imperative (NCU) - EPRI  If we do not intervene at the formative first 5 years of a child’s life, we have lost a critical life-changing window – EPRI  Social Assistance programmes still need community participation – the importance of school support teams (SST) as per CSTL model - Zimbabwe

Nutrition Support  It is important that nutrition programmes mobilise local resources and stimulate local school economies – food preparation by trained community members who get a stipend, procurement of local produce to stimulate agricultural economy etc  Identify and document good practice and build on it.

Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting  There are core indicators that we need to collect data on, analyse the data and report on to inform/advocate planning and budgeting - MIET  Core indicators need to be mainstreamed into our Education, Management Information Systems – MIET  School level data collection tools make it easier for schools to collect data and for EMIS to collect it and serve decision makers – SA-SAMS South Africa