COLLOQUIUM: ‘TEACHERS IN A WORLD WITH AIDS’

ZAMBIAN CASE STUDY

1.AN OVERVIEW OF THE HIV/AIDS SITUATION IN ZAMBIA.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has affected all areas of the country and the Education Sector has not been spared.

There has been the loss of trained teachers who are very difficult and expensive to replace. Both teachers and pupils are absent due to various reasons such as looking after the sick, attending to funerals because it is very important for people to attend funerals, which could be every day of the week. Other causes are being sick due to chronic illnesses.

This affects the quality of Education for learners. Teachers in class are stressed and falling to cope.

There has been financial drain through payments of funeral grants and terminal benefits. Until 2004, these funds were not budgeted for. Now with the Mid term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) of the Ministry of Finance and National Planning this expenditure has been factored in personal emoluments of MOE staff at all levels.

Prior to 2001 the pandemic impacted on the classroom in that there were low enrollments, and attendance levels and we saw an increased number of school children who dropped out of school.

After the declaration free basic education policy and the re-entry policies, coupled with school feeding programme, there has been an influx of school children into the classrooms which has now raised the teachers pupils ratio to 53 to 1 for Basic education and 21.5 to 1 for High School.

The HIV/AIDS prevalence rate for Zambians aged between 15-49 years is at 16% (CBOH 2003) However, the infection rate among the teachers is not yet known. There are plans to conduct an ‘ora-sure’ testing among teachers and MOE staff. So far a proposal has been submitted to the Ministry of Health, National HIV/AIDS Council and Central statistics office for their comments after which it will be tabled at the Ethics committee for approval. Once this activity is done, we will have data on the infection rate among MOE staff and teachers.

Between November 2001 to May 2003 the Zambia Demographic and Health survey was under taken in which;

7,126 households were interviewed and the response rate was 98.2%.

7,658 women were interviewed representing 96.4% response rate.

2,145 men were interviewed which represented 88.7% response rate.

Blood samples were taken to test for HIV 18% of women and 13% of men tested positive for HIV. The HIV prevalence is highest among Urban women aged 30-34.

  1. POLICY ISSUES

2.1. National HIV/AIDS Policy

The National HIV/AIDS/STI/TB Policy is being spearheaded by the Ministry of Health and up to June 2004 there is a final draft whose objectives are to:

a)reduce the transmission of HIV/STIS and TB;

b)reduce the negative impact of HIV/AIDS/STIDS/TB on the population;

c)intensify and strengthen preventive and control programmes by various stakeholders in order to reduce the spread and impact of HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB;

d)reduce the Socio-economic impact of HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB;

e)facilitate advocacy and Social mobilization on HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB;

f)promote IEC on HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB;

g)improve the diagnostic facilities for HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB;

h)improve the treatment of HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB there by reducing the morbidity and mortality related to HIV/AIDS/STIDS/TB;

i)promote care and support system for HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB;

j)encourage political commitment to the fight against HIV/STIS/TB;

k)promote partnership in the fight against HIV/STIS and TB;

l)ensure gender mainstreaming in all HIV/AIDS.STIS/TB;

m)build capacity in Human Resource Development and training in the area of HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB;

n)encourage research;

o)promote, uphold, and protect the human rights and dignity of all people with HIV/AIDS/STI/TB;

p)strengthen institutional arrangements that will facilitate effective and co-ordinated interventions to HIV/AIDS/STI and TB;

q)Mobilize resources for the implementation of the HIV/AIDS/STI/TB in an effective accountable and co-ordinated manner.

r)Provide a legal framework for the establishment of a multi-sectoral institution for technical guidance to implementing agencies;

s)Monitor and evaluate the implementation of the policy and the national response to HIV/AIDS/STIS/TB

The Ministry of Education held a consultative meeting with stakeholders at which the workplace policy was finalized between 8th 11th November 2004.

2.2. The Ministry ‘s position regarding:

2.2.1Teacher Recruitment and Deployment

The Ministry of Education recruits teachers through advertisement of vacancies in various schools. Due to imbalance in teacher

Supply between rural and urban areas, the Ministry of Education frequently “blacks out” teaching vacancies in urban areas in order to attract teachers in rural schools.

In principle all teacher recruits under go medical examination but practically all trained teachers who meet the criteria get employed.

Similarly, all trainee teachers undergo medical examinations before they are enrolled in government and grant aided colleges but non-has been turned away on account of their health status.

As a policy, the Ministry of Education does not recognize marital status as a criterion for deployment/placement of newly qualified teachers. However transfers of teachers on account of poor health are tolerated

2.2.2Leave Entitlements

Teachers like all public service workers are entitled to 2 days every month they serve and go on leave whenever they choose. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints coupled with teacher shortage many teachers do not enjoy their leave entitlements as spelt out in their conditions of service. For example, the Ministry of Education owes teachers leave pay benefits in excess of US $5 million.

In case of a teacher falling ill, he/she is entitled to 90 days sick leave on full salary. If illness persists beyond 90 days, the teacher is put on half salary for a further 90 days before he/she is removed from the payroll. However, with the advent of HIV/AIDS and with enormous advocacy campaigns for people afflicted with HIV/AIDS, the Ministry of Education has not strictly adhered to these conditions of service. As a result several hundred teachers are on payroll without actually teaching.

3.HIV/AIDS education

HIV/AIDS Education in Zambia is compulsory because it is a cross cutting issue that is taught in every learning are. At all levels. Currently the pupils-teachers ratio is 53 to 1 for Basic Education and 21.5 to 1 for High School Education.

Knowledge level of HIV/AIDS by students. Students in Zambia are refered to as tertiary students. These have high knowledge of HIV/AIDS, however behavior change is still lacking. They do not believe that they can be infected. The concept of faithfulness is misunderstood to mean being faithful to the partner at that particular time only i.e. first term and consequent terms they would have one partner and be faithful to them.

Some other HIV/AIDS risk factors affecting Zambian student teachers are:

Poverty – leading students to engage in undesirable and risk behavior such as sex for money.

Confusing messages from leadership such as the lack of consensus on the use of condoms.

The lack of coherent and affective HIV/AIDS Education activities in colleges of Education.

4.TEACHER TRAINING

There is currently a total of 41,331 teachers in Basic Education 19,748 female and 2158 male. There is a total of 6,895 High School teachers, 2,047 female and 4,848 males (Data Source Directorate of Planning and Information) in Zambia. This is excluding teachers in private schools, interactive Radio Instruction mentors and Community School teachers.

The Primary School teacher’s course is run on the format that students are in college in the first year and the second year in school practicing teaching.

a)So for 3,000 teachers have been trained to teach HIV/AIDS using the interactive methodologies

b)About 900 teachers have been trained in life skills methodologies.

c)About 600 community schoolteachers have been trained in life skills methodologies.

Number of students in college

CategoryNoStudents inStudents in

CollegesSchools

Govt colleges (Primary)063,4872,287

Govt colleges(Secondary)02 500

Govt colleges (in-service)02 500

Grant Aided colleges (pre-service)041,5881,300

Private colleges (pre-service)102,6472,363

Totals246,7225,950

Grand total14,672

Source- Directorate of Teacher Education and Specialized Services data base

Several strategies have been put in place to reach teachers with in-service training for HIV/AIDS

  1. Teachers group meeting in the school policy of in-service for the term (SRINT) share HIV/AIDS information and methodology
  2. Books have been produced, printed and are being distributed to help teachers to integrate HIV/AIDS in their lessons e.g.
  1. The mathematics of HIV/AIDS (2004)
  2. Interactive methodologies manual for HIV/AIDS prevention in Zambia Schools (2003)
  3. Life skills training manual (2003)
  4. Guidelines for the use of grades 1-12 HIV/AIDS posters (2004)
  5. School special issues annual work plan guidelines (2004)
  6. Life skills Teachers guide (2003) Grades 1-5
  7. Life skills pupils books (2003) Grades 1-5
  8. Choose life magazine (2004)
  9. ZANUT Books
  10. IEC materials

5.The role of the ministry of education in the national AIDS response.

The ministry of Education works closely with the NAC because;

a)The ministry is represented at the national country Co-ordinating mechanism (CCM) Committee through the Permanent Secretary.

b)The ministry is represented in the National AIDS Council technical working groups namely;

-Orphans and Vulnerable children

-Information, Education and communication

-Workplace technical working group.

The national AIDS Council is implementing a multi Sectoral response to HIV/AIDS. Each Line ministry develops annual work plans using their comparative advantage in carrying out their activities. NAC does not give funds to the ministry of Education nor does it have an officer in charge of Education.

The ministry of Education has participated in the preparation of global fund application and the Permanent Secretary is involved in the review of the application.

6.The role of teachers unions as relates to teachers and HIV/AIDS

There are 3 teacher Unions in Zambia namely; The Basic Education Teachers Union (BETUZ) The Secondary Teachers Union (SESTUZ) and the Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT)

CHALLENGES

The Ministry of Education has many challenges some of them are;

  1. Getting all the teachers trained in interactive methodologies and life skills for psychosocial competencies. There are 10 core skills namely; decision making, problem solving, critical thinking, creative thinking, effective communication, interpersonal relationships, self awareness, empathy coping with emotions and coping with stress.
  2. Getting all the teachers to include HIV/AIDS education activities in all their lessons.
  3. HIV/AIDS focused readers are sent to schools but teachers and pupils have no access to them. The fact that HIV/AIDS is not a stand alone subject it is not examinable and including HIV/AIDS questions in the National examination is not enough.
  4. There are very little or no HIV/AIDS activities in High Schools and colleges. Plans are on going to accelerate the HIV/AIDS education in colleges of Education through UNESCO support.
  5. The HIV/AIDS education at all levels does not have full time staff.
  6. There is a growing number of orphans and their psycho-social needs are not catered for.
  7. There is a lot of child/pupil/teacher sexual abuse that is not adequately addressed.
  8. Implementing a peer education programme in every school is not yet a reality.
  9. Although there are no empirical evidence quite a number of female students do return from school – based year training with either a pregnancy or with a baby. Some of the students may therefore contract HIV.
  10. Non-recognition of marriage as a criterion in teacher deployment may be a health (HIV/AIDS) risk factor.
  11. The low salaries and allowances paid to teachers and students respectively means that most of them cannot afford to meet this basic needs forcing some of them to engage in illicit sex which is an HIV/AIDS risk factor.

Opportunities and prospects for addressing the challenges identified.

  1. The ministry has adapted the choose life soul city magazine for the Zambian youth so that `while the teacher is too shy to talk about sexual issues; the pupils have all the HIV/AIDS information they need in a colourful magazine. 900,000 copies are being printed.
  2. Student partnership worldwide is piloting in one province of Zambia with 100 schools targeted for Zambia Reproductive health lessons delivered by school leavers as volunteers. This will be scaled over the years to come.
  3. PEP for funds from United States will be used to train 1000 teachers in interactive methodologies, 144 peer education and county wide advocacy and sensitization will be clamed out to encourage more teachers to access VCT and know their status in order to use the government finds available to staff to access anti
  4. The school special issues annual work plan guidelines that were developed will enable all levels of the education sector to plan and budget for HIV/AIDS activities.
  5. Once the peer education programme takes root this may help to scale HIV/AIDS information and foster behaviour changes

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