Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - October 28, 2007
Buyekezwa Makwabe

A story about an HIV-positive prostitute, who abandons her baby, is being taught to primary school pupils across the country - despite being banned in classrooms in the Western Cape.

The story, a case study intended to create awareness about HIV/Aids among Grade 5 pupils, appears in the textbook My Clever Natural Sciences through Issues.

But this week provincial education authorities said it was an "unsound choice of teaching material", after a parent complained. The book has been available in seven provinces for about three years.

The story describes a mother who turns to prostitution because of poverty, meets a wealthy man, abandons her baby and emigrates to receive treatment for HIV/Aids. Upon hearing that her daughter is dying of Aids, she returns and apologises to the girl for what she did. The girl pleads with her mother to save her, but dies. Pupils are asked to compare their lives with the lives of those in the case study.

The parent who complained wrote: "This is distressing beyond belief. What does a 10-year-old child growing up in a township learn from this story? If you don't have enough money, a reasonable option is to sell your body."

The provincial Department of Education issued a memo to schools, asking them not to use the case study.

Provincial education spokesman Gert Witbooi said: "The basic suggestion is that one way of dealing with HIV/Aids is to marry a wealthy person, and the fact that a promiscuous person threw away her baby ... all of this makes it an educationally unsound case study for Grade 5 learners."

The book has been available in all provinces except for Limpopo and the Free State, where it was rejected.

Clever Books, publishers of the book, managing director, Steve Cilliers said: "The Western Cape had an open list [of textbooks] at the time and did not undertake evaluations of textbooks." He was not with Clever Books when the textbook was published and had no record of why two provinces had rejected it, he said.

The case study describes the mother as Mrs X and daughter as Miss Y. "Ten years ago Miss Y was conceived by accident whilst Mrs X was working the streets. She did not know who the father was because she went out with at least four people per day, who were often complete strangers to her."

Don Francis, a former consultant to the Western Cape Education Department, wrote the case study for Clever Books. Francis said he never anticipated the reaction the book has evoked. He was simply trying to "create awareness around HIV/Aids because parents do not talk about it".

" A lot of things happen to kids that we are not aware of, as parents. We need to arm them," he said.

However, Dr Mambwe Kasese-Hara, a psychology lecturer at Wits University, did not agree. "There is no need in shocking children into avoiding sex and HIV," she said. "Such inappropriate tactics might traumatise children."

Kasese-Hara sharply criticised the department for not paying enough attention when approving textbooks for schools. And she said there was insufficient consultation with experts in the field.

Cilliers said that he agreed with some of the issues raised by the parent who had complained and had consulted with the Medical Research Council to replace the case study with a more appropriate one. He said the story would be replaced by a tamer version - a baby who contracts HIV in the womb before birth.

Eastern Cape Chief Director of Curriculum, Suren Govender, said he had not received complaints from teachers, unions, parents or pupils about the controversial case study .

"We always interact with districts to keep tabs on any feedback about the quality of books we have in our catalogue. So far, nobody has ever raised any concerns relating to a controversial case study," he said.

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Additional reporting by Zine George

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