'Teacher Shocks and Student Learning: Evidence from Zambia', found that
when teachers were absent as a result of illness, the level of learning
was affected. "In a country like Zambia, with very high HIV
prevalence, shocks due to illnesses and funerals can lead to long
absences and substantial declines in teaching performance," said
the study, which surveyed 182 schools in four of the country's eight
provinces. It found that the illness of either the teacher or members of
their family accounted for more than 60 percent of absences.
Statistics from the National AIDS Council indicate that in a population
of 10 million, about two million Zambians are living with HIV, of which
half are believed to have already developed AIDS. The World Bank
research also cited reports which had found that the number of teachers
lost to HIV/AIDS increased from two per day in 1996 to four or more a
day in 1998, representing two-thirds of each year's output of newly
trained teachers. "Consensus is building that teachers constitute a
school-level resource that parents find hard to substitute at home - it
is possible that parents do not have the time or skills to teach their
children at home. Further, the agency costs of hiring teachers in a
market may be high, and such costs may be accentuated due to low overall
levels of learning in low-income countries," the report commented.
Peroshni Govender, a researcher with the South African Institute for
International Affairs who has studied the impact of HIV/AIDS on
education across Africa, observed: "Countries like Zambia and
Zimbabwe face having the gains made towards achieving Universal Primary
Education by 2015 reversed, unless they stabilise the devastating impact
of AIDS. "A dangerous cycle is setting in: AIDS is decreasing the
opportunity for children to become educated, and less education deepens
poverty, which in turn increases the vulnerability to infection,"
she pointed out.
"We know that Zambia is not able to train substitute teachers fast
enough to keep pace with the rate at which it is losing teachers to
HIV/AIDS, because it does not have the resources to do so - we need to
look at the problem holistically," said Hassan Lorgat, spokesperson
for the South African chapter of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE),
an international NGO coalition. According to Lorgat, developed countries
and the International Monetary Fund should help to ease the financial
burden on low-income countries through debt cancellation, to allow them
to divert resources to stabilise institutions of learning.
In the interim, Lorgat said, the GCE advocated training volunteers
identified by local community leaders to provide educational support to
the students in the absence of teachers. Govender said governments
needed to create a climate where teachers could disclose their HIV
status without fear of discrimination or the threat of losing their
jobs. She also noted the need to intensify national antiretroviral
treatment rollouts.
(Source: PlusNews, June 2, 2005)
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