A UN report predicts that by 2015 Aids orphans will constitute between 9% and 12% of South Africa’s total population Charlene Smith The government will reach the point where it will not be able to train teachers fast enough to replace those who die from HIV/Aids.
South African schoolchildren – sexually active as young as 12 years old and believing sexual violence to be normal – will go to their graves earlier than will the adults who think their children are too young to be educated about Aids. Market structures will change as money is diverted from education and housing to health and funeral costs. These projections are contained in a new briefing paper by education expert and researcher Carol Coombes for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca).
The paper asserts that the HIV/Aids/sexually transmitted diseases (STD) five-year strategic plan released by government in June is “a step backwards” in its failure 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”. Coombes observes that “criticism of government has been interpreted as an attack” and relationships with NGOs have faltered.
Although the paper states that Minister of Education Kader Asmal has a real commitment to dealing with the impact of HIV/Aids, the feeding tube of the economy – education – is already in trouble. In 1998 in its Human Development Report, South Africa, the United Nations Development Programme calculated there were more than 258E000 HIV-positive pupils over 18 in the system. Over the preceding three years, figures for school entrants had been declining by an average of 5% a year. But the first challenge is persuading South Africans, who are traditionally sexually conservative, to realise that their children are not. 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 to 16. 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. In Free State teenagers reported they were sexually active at about 12 years old, due to experimentation or peer pressure, and few practised safe sex.” Coombes echoes the findings of a report issued in June by the internationally based Community, Information, Empowerment and Transparency developmental organisation, whose researchers, interviewing more than 4 000 young people, discovered that most considered sexual violence to be normal and that one in four boys had been involved in rape.
Writes Coombes in her report: “Violence is common and even considered the norm in sexual relationships.” 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. She notes: “A qualitative study among Xhosa-speaking pregnant adolescent women revealed that violent and coercive male behaviour … directly affected the capacity [of young women] to protect themselves against STDs, pregnancy and unwanted sexual intercourse. Communication between partners on sexual issues was non- existent, and conditions and timing of sex were defined by male partners, giving young women little or no opportunity to discuss or practise safer sex.” Similar data was presented to last week’s Aids conference in Durban by British researcher Kate Wood, reporting on a 10- month study in Transkei. Coombes reports that “in some places, particularly where there is political violence and high crime levels, HIV has come to be accepted as a new and inevitable part of growing up. 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 HIV/Aids will be the eventual cause of death of half of those South Africans who are now 15 years old. Aside from the human costs of this disaster, the financial implications will numb the economy. The Uneca report notes that “Old Mutual Actuaries and Consultants forecast that the annual death rate in the workforce will rise from five to 30 per 1E000 workers. Hardest hit are mineworkers, some 45% of whom are already HIV-positive (in late 1999). At least 12% of educators are HIV-positive. “Public sector services, in common with the private sector, will be affected by doubling or even tripling of medical benefits. The economically active population will be reduced, leaders and managers will be among those worst affected, and fewer new skills will be coming into the labour market. 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. “Skilled labour wage rates may increase as the supply of skilled personnel dwindles. 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.”
And poverty, which President Thabo Mbeki says is the primary indicator of HIV/Aids, will “rise even further 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.”
Coombes warns “the incidence of HIV infection among teachers is likely to be above that for the population as a whole. Rates as high as 40% have been reported from parts of Malawi and Uganda.” Education will collapse as the financial burden on government increases. “School effectiveness will decline where 30% to 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, further development will be more difficult and … current development goals will be unattainable.”
According to the 1999 Progress of Nations Report, South Africa is one of seven countries where the number of children orphaned by HIV/Aids increased by more than 400% between 1994 and 1997. In KwaZulu- Natal, it is estimated that this year there will be between 197E000 and 278E000 HIV/Aids orphans – that is, 5,8% to 8,8% of all children. In 2015, when the epidemic is expected to peak, orphans will constitute between 9% and 12% of the total population of South Africa – or about 3,6-million to 4,8- million children. Coombes writes that “in this context, the South African Institute for Security Studies anticipates that age and Aids will be significant contributors to an increase in the rate of crime over the next 10 to 20 years.
“In a decade every fourth South African will be aged between 15 and 24. It is at this age where people’s propensity to commit crime is at its highest. At about the same time, there will be a boom in South Africa’s orphan population as the Aids epidemic takes its toll. This growing pool of orphans will be at greater than average risk to engage in criminal activity.”
The report suggests that the educational sector needs more information to comprehend the impact of HIV/Aids on classrooms, teachers, children, communities, and sector management and to put in place strategies to harness it. While there is life skills training in many schools, the report says its efficacy tends to be patchy. “Education is big business. It consumes over 20% of the national budget. It touches the life of each South African. Its survival response needs to be urgent, efficient, timely and creative.” And, as children pull out of school because of the pandemic, departments of education will need to find strategies to “provide an increasing range of learning possibilities, offering pupils greater flexibility in choosing what, where, when, how and at what pace they learn. So far, these concerns are not reflected in departments of education planning documents.”