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Key ElementsThe impact
of the AIDS epidemic on individuals, families, and communities at the
micro-level of society can be immense. People fall ill, cannot work, and
lose income. Their families spend money on care and treatment and lose
further income in acting as carers. Traditional support systems are
stretched and broken; families and communities lose their economic,
social, and cultural viability.
Although the elite classes can be
seriously affected, the greatest impact is on the poor. Poorer families
and communities spend less on nutritious food, adequate shelter, routine
preventive health measures, non-AIDS-related health care, education and
other basic needs. Women are at a special disadvantage. On the one hand
they have fewer opportunities in terms of schooling and employment,
land-ownership, security over land title, wage-earning and profitable
self-employment (especially at times of recession and structural
adjustment). On the other, they are at a special risk, often gaining
access to income through sexual relationships with men. For widows and
orphans, loss of land, shelter and inheritance may force them to depend on
relatives or migrate to cities, where they might join an urban underclass
of commercial sex workers and street children.
As a result of all
these social and economic processes, the AIDS epidemic can have a serious
impact on the education sector - specifically on the demand for, supply
of, and quality of the education provided at all
levels.
Demand
Numbers
As a result of HIV
and AIDS, fewer children may need education because the birth rate will
decline following the early deaths of potential parents. The transmission
of HIV from mother to child (which is estimated to occur in 30% of cases
where the mother is HIV-positive), will increase infant and child
mortality and further reduce the numbers of children entering school. In
general there will not be a fall in the absolute number of children, but
rather the rate of increase will decline.
Affordability and availability
In situations where schooling requires a financial outlay
fewer children and their families will be able to afford education because
of:
- the direct loss of family income from AIDS-related illness and
death, and costs of care and funerals;
- expansion of extended families, where more children require money
for schooling, which cannot be provided by the less productive remaining
adults i.e. grandparents or teenagers;
- the loss of the traditional economic safety net of extended family
and community. However it is not just the lack of financial resources
that will keep children out of school. Other factors include:
- the need for children to work or care for ill adults;
- trauma related to family illness and death;
- ostracism, discrimination, and stigma suffered by children due to
infection or HIV/AIDS in the family;
- in extended families, lower motivation provided by less educated
guardian grandparents and reduced attention given to orphans by heads of
households;
- illness of infected children entering primary school;
- the perception that investment in education will not give returns
due to premature mortality.
Even if children enter school the
above factors will reduce the chances of them completing their education.
Gender disparities
HIV/AIDS may
increase educational disparities between boys and girls because girls are
removed from school to nurse siblings or relatives, to substitute for the
productive work of other family members or to save the costs of school
fees. Moreover, girls may be encouraged to marry early - because they are
pushed out or seek escape from overcrowded extended families; because men
seek younger and presumably uninfected wives; and because parents want
daughters removed from a “dangerous” school environment in terms of
infection risk and sex education.
Special needs and orphans
Finally, it will become increasingly difficult for education
to reach children, especially those defined as being in “difficult
circumstances”. AIDS exacerbates problems of poverty, disinheritance,
migration, orphanhood, child abandonment, psychological trauma, ostracism,
discrimination, physical and sexual abuse - the very conditions which
create such children.
A major problem identified with the HIV/AIDS
epidemic is the burgeoning population of orphans. Evidence shows that
orphans have higher mortality rates; are likely to be less well nourished;
may be overworked by their guardians; and lack supervision, proper care,
and school or vocational activities. Such problems may be exacerbated if
the child is uprooted from family and community, either through outright
orphanhood or because of the often enforced migration of widows and their
children. Such circumstances are resulting in increasing numbers of
abandoned, exploited and unschooled “street children”.
Supply
HIV/AIDS may affect the supply
of education through deaths of personnel, school closures, and reduced
budgets for education. Teachers and other education personnel are not
immune to HIV infection, indeed in some instances HIV seroprevalence may
be higher among teachers than other groups. Teachers’ higher incomes and
greater mobility are important risk factors, furthermore they may be
posted to areas away from their families.
The result of HIV
infection will be:
- absenteeism caused by illness, tending the sick, and attending
funerals;
- loss of staff due to increased mortality;
- transfers from (or refusals to be posted to) heavily affected areas.
Of particular impact are the generous terms and conditions under
which government staff are employed. In some countries they may have up to
a year of sick leave with various levels of payment, and then their
employment cannot be terminated unless a medical board is convened. This
will create major difficulties for Ministries of Education, who have to
pay staff who are not working.
A fall in pupils - through lower
enrolment or non-continuation - will lead to a decrease in the number of
classes and schools. Reduced supply of education may also stem from lack
of support and finance from heavily affected communities and/or the
government. As both have other competing demands for resources, funds for
maintaining facilities and places, let alone building new ones, may be
very limited.
At school and community level, as extended families
grow, available income decreases while more financial resources are needed
for illness and death; thus less money is contributed by the community to
the school. At the level of the education system, funds may be required
for health-related personnel costs such as treatment and care of staff,
insurance, death benefits, etc.; training and paying replacements of
affected personnel (who may still be on the payroll), and on implementing
an effective AIDS education programme.
At the same time, increased
funds might be required for new clients and roles which the education
system may need to adopt - scholarships for orphans, teacher-training in
counselling, new curricula in family life education, new school-based
programs in income generation. The Ministry of Education, however, may
receive a diminishing proportion of the national budget as demand for
resources increases from other sectors.
Process and quality
The
“numbers”, “tone” and quality of education are changing as a result of the
impact of HIV and AIDS. The processes and social interactions which make
education work are inevitably being coloured by the epidemic. These
include:
- increased randomness in education, especially where systems already
affected by recession, debt, poverty, or disasters are further disrupted
by absenteeism of teachers and pupils caused by HIV and AIDS;
- a less-qualified teaching force, as experienced teachers are
replaced with those younger and less well-trained;
- discrimination, ostracism, and isolation of students and teachers
who are infected or ill or who have families where somebody is ill or
has died from AIDS. Teachers may face suspension of social and health
benefits and/or dismissal. Pupils may face formal suspension or be
pressured to leave “voluntarily”;
- the occurrence in some societies of sexual relations in schools,
voluntary or otherwise, among students and between teachers and
students.
- The need to include AIDS or life-skill education in the curricula.
It is increasingly realised that education at the pre-secondary level
will be needed if behaviour change is to occur. This will require
development of new material, training of teachers to use this, and the
possible need to obtain community acceptance of it.
- The special needs of those children who are infected and are in
schooling will need to be considered.
Higher Education
Most of the
above processes are also present at higher education level, but here
vulnerability and potential impact are exacerbated because: students of
technical and vocational schools, colleges and universities, are more
sexually active, usually residing far from their families and in boarding
schools; and these establishments are often located in larger urban areas
where the risk of infection is greater.
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