recommendations (Jewkes, 2000). Their efforts contributed to the Employment of Educators Act and new Department of Education guidelines, both of which were introduced in 2000. These regulations mandate dismissal of educators found guilty of sexual or physical assault, or of having a sexual relationship with a student. They also define penalties for failing to report abuse. It remains to be seen whether these measures will have the intended impact. After the act was passed, Human Rights Watch (2001) suggested that the South African government needed to do more to increase awareness of the law among school principals and to strengthen enforcement.

# **Institutional reform**

Efforts to improve the institutional response to gender-based violence range from sensitization and training of staff, sexual harassment policies, curriculum reform, school-wide anti-violence awareness campaigns, counseling and referrals, and broader efforts to reduce discrimination against girls and improve school safety.

# **_Initiatives to increase female enrolment by improving girls’ safety at and on the way to school_**

As mentioned earlier, parental concerns about girls’ safety in school appears to lower female school enrolment in settings such as South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Some initiatives have addressed these concerns by establishing single sex schools, hiring more female teachers, building separate latrines or canteens for girls, reducing the distance that girls must travel in order to receive an education, and/or providing in-service gender sensitivity training to teachers, principals and inspectors (UNICEF, 2004). For example, the UNICEF African Girls Education Initiative (AGEI) used a combination of these approaches, (along with other strategies) to boost girls’ enrolment in 34 African countries (UNICEF, 2003a). Evidence of this project’s effectiveness was limited in many sites, largely due to limitations in the evaluation design. While some demonstrated significant enrolment increases (for example, 15% in Guinea, 12% in Senegal, and 9% in Benin) in relatively short periods of time, the extent to which this was due to the project impact was not clear. Overall, however, the experience of this project suggests that addressing concerns about girls’ safety and reducing the risk of sexual harassment and violence in schools is not only a high priority for parents, but also a potentially promising way to improve girls’ access to education in selected settings (UNICEF, 2003b).

# **_Improving attitudes, knowledge, skills and practices of educators_**

Many initiatives have aimed to improve educators’ attitudes, knowledge and practices in regards to gender discrimination, sexual violence and sexual harassment. Few have been well documented or evaluated. A comparative study of HIV/AIDS education in three African countries found evidence that awareness and responses to sexual harassment in the Uganda sites was markedly better than those in Botswana and Malawi; researchers attributed this to the Ugandan government’s efforts to curb sexual harassment in schools (Bennell, Hyde, and Swainson, 2002). The South African National Department of Education (in collaboration with international organizations) has developed a training module for educators (South African National Department of Education, 2001). Composed of eight interactive workshops and other materials, the module aims to increase educators’ awareness of sexual harassment and gender violence, highlight the links between violence and HIV/AIDS and increase the safety of the school environment. The module is a professional development tool, rather than a part of the national curriculum. It has been field tested in some sites, and according to some reports is being rolled out nationwide.

In other settings, schools have trained educators to teach courses promoting gender-equitable norms and nonviolence among students. For example, a consortium of researchers and advocates field-tested the "Gender and conflict" Model Curriculum in South Africa (Dreyer et al., 2001; Guedes, 2004) to compare a "whole school" approach (which trained the entire primary school staff, including principals and auxiliary staff) with a “trainer of trainers” approach (which trained two teachers from each school and 33