Every voice counts: Towards a new agenda for schools in rural communities in the age of AIDS

Abstract

This discussion piece focuses on possible strategies for taking action around some of the challenges teachers and schools in rural communities face in the context of larger systemic changes in southern Africa, and particularly in the context of HIV/AIDS. For this purpose we examine five key entry points, i.e. teachers’ lives, school leadership and management, the voices of young people, teachers working with communities, and partnerships and pedagogies for preparing new teachers. We propose visual participatory research as a possible strategy for providing a space for dialogue that could be unleashed from the narrow political and economical aims of education transformation in South Africa. In a context where rural communities and schools are often viewed and approached as deficient, we consider the importance of an asset-based approach, invoking specific types of communication as an alternative to a needs-based approach to community development.