The HIV/Aids epidemic threatens to destroy our education system.
THE figures for Aids in education are becoming terrifying — two teachers are dying each week, and within the next 18 months teachers will be dying faster than they can be trained.
At a function in Johannesburg teachers compared notes about HIV infection rates and how it is affecting their institutions. They agreed: ”We never seem to stop attending memorial services. More and more teachers are taking long periods of sick leave. We aren’t supposed to know why, but it’s becoming clear that HIV infection is the reason in most instances.”
Rates of illness among South African teachers are approaching those in Cote d’Ivoire, where, the June 2000 Aids report noted that teachers with HIV miss up to six months of school before dying (compared with 10 days missed by teachers dying of other causes). That report noted that in the Central African Republic one in seven adults are infected (around one in five are infected in South Africa) and 107 schools closed due to staff shortages.
At a workshop on sexual violence and HIV in another part of Johannesburg, teachers said: ”We are supposed to be teaching the children about HIV, but we don’t understand enough about it.”
Children in South Africa are at risk of contracting HIV through two primary means. The first, among adolescents, is early unprotected sex, or among children of all ages — sexual abuse. Childline notes that one in five boys and one in three girls under the age of 16 has been sexually molested. Their risk from HIV infection is high.
Research in the United States has proven HIV transmission in children as a result of sexual abuse. Kenneth Dominguez of the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, the world’s premier Aids monitoring and treatment organisation, says this places an increased onus on those working with children and who suspect sexual abuse to report it quickly.
However, research has also shown that South African school children — sexually active as young as 12-years-old — often think sexual violence is normal. They will go to their graves before the adults who think they are too young to be educated about Aids, according to educational expert Carol Coombes.
In a new paper for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Coombes notes that the HIV/Aids/Sexually Ttransmitted Diseases (STDs) strategic plan released by government in June, is ”a step backwards” by failing to address ”the potential social, economic and infrastructural impact of the pandemic on vital national sectors like labour, education, agriculture, the public service, or business.”
In 1998, the United Nations Development Programme in its Human Development Report, South Africa, calculated that there were more than 258 000 HIV-positive learners over 18-years-old in the system that year. And over the following three years figures for school entrants were declining 5% per annum.
Coombes notes that, ”a survey among 16- to 20-year old-youth in urban townships found that 40% of young women and 60% of young men had more than one sexual partner in the previous six months. Condom use was low.
”In rural KwaZulu-Natal, 76% of girls and 90% of boys are reported to be sexually experienced by the time they are 15- or 16-years-old. Boys start sexual intercourse earlier than girls (13.43 years versus 14.86 years), have more partners and nearly twice as often have an STD history.
Rape is often the first induction into sex: ”Research in one township found that all the girls (mean age 16.4 years) had had sexual intercourse … a third described their first sexual experience as rape or forced sex, and two-thirds of teenagers had experienced sex against their wishes.”
Coombes reports that, ”young people who suspect they are infected with HIV may avoid a definite diagnosis, but at the same time seek to spread the infection as widely as possible.” Against this background lies the UNAids projection that half of South Africa’s 15-year-olds will probably die of HIV/Aids.
Coombes notes: ”The economically active population will be reduced. Market structures may change because of the redirection of individual and family expenditure away from ‘luxuries’ — like housing and education — towards medical care, funerals, and associated costs.
”Government revenue and therefore public sector budgets will be squeezed as the country’s tax base shrinks, as demand rises for social and health care and support.” Poverty will ”rise as parents who are sick and no longer bring in an income die, and the number of child-headed households increases. Families will be less able to supplement state expenditure on education … leading to greater demands on state provisioning.”
The UN commission for Africa (UNECA) report notes, ”the incidence of HIV infection among teachers is likely to be above that for the population as a whole.” Education will collapse as the financial burden on government increases. ”School effectiveness will decline where 30 – 40% of teachers, officials and children are ill, lacking morale, and unable to concentrate on learning, teaching and professional matters… there will be a reversal of development gains, and current development goals will be unattainable.”
South Africa, according to the 1999 Progress of Nations Report, by 2015, when the Aids epidemic is expected to peak, orphans will constitute between nine and 12% of the total population of South Africa — or about 3.6 to 4.8 million children.”
The commission suggests that the educational sector needs to comprehend the impact of HIV/Aids on the classroom and to put in place strategies to harness it. While there is life skills training in many schools, the report says its efficacy is patchy. The commission notes that ”education consumes over 20% of the national budget.” It says the Department of Education is ”responsible for ensuring sufficient skilled workers for South Africa … as children pull out of school because of the pandemic, the department will need to find strategies to ‘provide an increasing range of learning possibilities, offering learners greater flexibility in choosing what, where, when, how and at what pace they learn.’ So far, these concerns are not reflected in the Department of Education’s planning documents.”
Coping at school with HIV/Aids
By CHARLENE SMITH
Schools need to develop strategies to cope with HIV-positive children and teachers in ways that do not discriminate against those infected and ensure other children remain uninfected.
Ongoing Aids education is critical, but what about children who injure themselves or who play rough contact sports?
The Centres for Disease Control advise that strategies should be in place. ”The following are scenarios that might preclude a child from participating in group activities: a child with weeping wounds that are difficult to cover with bandages, a neurologically impaired child or any child with aggressive biting behaviour who is unable or unwilling to change the behaviour.” An HIV-positive child, particularly one with a heart condition, needs to be kept away from risk of respiratory infections.
And what about telling a child he or she is HIV-positive? ”The decision to disclose a child’s HIV status to the child is a personal one that must be made by the guardians of the child and should take into account the child’s age, level of emotional development and cognitive abilities, the timing and location of disclosure should be thought of as a long-term process rather than a one-time event. To avoid breach of confidentiality in school settings, older children should be allowed to self-administer their medications with the approval of the school medical advisor and parent.”
Aids education should begin for children from preschool upwards.
Source: Management of HIV-infected children in the home and institutional settings; Kenneth Dominguez, Centers for Disease Control, Feburary 2000
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, September 11, 2000.
M&G Supplements