Curriculum-based Education
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Curriculum-based education is an organized set of activities or exercises ordered in a developmental fashion and designed to enable its target audience to obtain specific knowledge, experiences and skills. There are a number of settings and target populations in which curriculum-based education is utilized, for example, HIV health care provider and personnel training (e.g., counselors, peer educators and lab technicians) and school based HIV and AIDS courses and peer education sessions. The majority of curriculum-based education programs are implemented in the school setting, with youth as the primary target group, which is the main focus of this resource.
Core components for implementing curriculum-based education include providing training for educators in age appropriate methods; conducting participatory needs assessments, identifying agents of change and positive role models, involving youth and communities in materials development and implementation, delivering messages where the intended audience congregates (e.g. cinemas), and linking education to services.
Youth HIV and AIDS curricula are considered most effective when they are designed with the participation of the intended audience, begun early, and adapted to the age and development stage of the learner. In general, curricula provide considerable guidance to the educator or facilitator and can produce consistent results across settings if implemented in a similar manner. Program evaluations and systematic reviews have found that curriculum-based HIV education can be effective in widely differing geographic areas, various cultural and learning settings (e.g., primary/secondary/tertiary, vocational, formal and non-formal learning environments), and among varying populations (e.g., youth, adults and marginalized populations1. There is strong evidence that school-based HIV educational curricula do not increase sexual behavior, and often lead to positive health outcomes; for example, delayed sexual début, reductions in the number of sexual partners and increased use of condoms.
Cultural, political, and religious barriers; legal limitations; and inconsistent quality of programming can affect efforts to educate young people about HIV and AIDS. These barriers can be overcome by highlighting evidence that demonstrates that sex education does not increase sexual activity, high quality programs are associated with a range of positive health and behavioral outcomes, and sex education can be developed using age- appropriate materials.
1Kirby, D., Laris, B.A., Rolleri, L. “Impact of Sex and HIV Education Programs on Sexual Behaviors of Youth in Developing and Developed Countries.” Family Health International, Research Triangle Park, NC,(2005).
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