Sunday Times - Sunday 12 May 2002
Cornia Pretorius

A World Bank report released this week in Washington, in the US, says that in the worst-hit countries, teachers are "dying faster than they can be replaced". Teachers' deaths deprived an estimated 860 000 children of educators in 1999.

In addition to teachers, education administrators, inspectors and managers are falling ill and universities are reporting an increase in deaths among staff and students.

"The University of Zambia reported an average of three deaths a month throughout the 1990s, while the University of Nairobi is experiencing four to six deaths a month," the report states.

Though reliable figures on teachers' mortality rates are not readily available, the report highlights evidence that shows an increase in teacher mortality rates "in the presence of HIV/Aids".

Among the shocking facts are that:

In the Central African Republic, 85% of teachers who died between 1996 and 1998 were HIV-positive;

In Zambia, 1 300 teachers died in the first 10 months of 1998 compared with 680 teachers in 1996;

In Kenya, teacher deaths rose from 450 in 1995 to 1 500 in 1999, while in one of the country's eight provinces, 20 to 30 teachers die from Aids each month; and

More than 30% of teachers in Malawi and Uganda are estimated to be HIV-positive, 20% in Zambia and 12% in South Africa.

In South Africa, about 44 000 teachers are infected.

An increase in teachers' mortality rates will worsen the existing shortage of teachers in key subject areas such as mathematics and science.

Some experts believe up to 30 000 teachers will have to be trained in the next eight years to meet the demand. The current output is about 20 000.

Duncan Hindle, deputy Director-General of General Education in the Department of Education in South Africa, said: "We are seeing teachers getting ill and dying."

He said the department was hosting a conference on HIV/Aids at the end of the month that would look at the supply and demand of teachers.

According to Hindle, the department had a pool of unemployed teachers that it could pull in. He said the 26 teacher-training institutions could supply enough teachers.

Hassen Lorgat, spokesman for the South African Democratic Teachers' Union, the largest teachers' union in South Africa, said there was "no question" that South African teachers were dying of Aids.

He said stronger political leadership was necessary and should be "subcontracted to government departments".

Research shows that higher education levels correlate with lower infection rates among the youth, and schools are in an ideal position to reach children in the "window of hope" age group of five to 14 years, where infection rates are the lowest.

The so-called "education vaccine" means that political commitment and education could "become a country's strongest weapon against HIV/Aids - or failing that, its worst victim reversing decades of hard-won gains," according to the World Bank report.

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