This CSTL Child and Youth Agency Framework (CYAF) has been developed as an addendum to support the SADC Policy Framework for Care and Support for Teaching and Learning (CSTL PF) by advocating for the review and effective transformation of education systems to achieve children’s agency. The SADC Member States have committed to transforming their education systems into vehicles of inclusive growth that can drive sustainable development within the regional bloc.

The CSTL PF provides a road map to guide the policy review and reform process. It does so through several policy statements that recognise the barriers to inclusive education in the region, as well as the measures and outcomes that education systems should take and achieve to overcome the barriers preventing the inclusion and full participation of vulnerable children in education.

All ministries have committed to addressing the identified barriers to inclusive education to ensure that education is the driver of inclusive, rights-based development in the region. The CSTL PF identifies one of the key barriers as the poor/outdated quality of education, especially the education as taught and received by vulnerable and marginalised children.

All Southern African Development Community (SADC) Member States are required to address this barrier by improving the quality of education so that it is relevant and provides children with the knowledge, skills and capacities they need to be active and engaged citizens who will drive and sustain the region’s development vision, goals and aspirations. As such, the CSTL PF provides an authoritative instruction and mandate to all Member States’ Ministries of Education to improve the quality of education to achieve its transformational goals. Whilst it provides substantial direction on the measures necessary to enable the social and economic inclusion of children through the mainstreaming of their relevant socio-economic rights and services within education, it provides less guidance on the curriculum reform measures necessary to enable children to take up their civic and political responsibilities through the mainstreaming of children’s civil and political rights.

To address this gap, this Child and Youth Agency Framework for 21st Century Education (CYAF) has been developed in order to:

• Provide concrete guidance on the standards and measures required for effective mainstreaming of children’s rights, including their rights to participation in and through education

• Highlight the importance of ensuring that education reform measures initiated within the Policy Framework pay equal and focused attention to enabling children’s civic and political agency

• Provide and promote the rationale for the focus on children’s civil and political rights

• The CYAF is intended to guide a curriculum reform process to ensure that all the education systems in the SADC region serve their transformational purpose.

In addition, it is intended to bring about a whole-system reform process to position education and the curriculum as the engine of inclusive sustainable development. It does so through the process of mainstreaming children’s rights, capacities, skills and competencies necessary for their full and engaged participation in the social and economic, as well as the civil and political dimensions of society.