Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - April 20, 2008
Prega Govender

Johanna Bapela was lauded on Tuesday for openly disclosing her HIV-positive status during the launch of a multimillion-rand initiative for teachers affected by the HIV/Aids pandemic.

But on Thursday the 39-year old Mpumalanga teacher did not go to school, after she was inundated with a barrage of telephone calls slamming her for her public disclosure.

Outraged callers told the mother of four that she had brought embarrassment on herself and members of the profession by publicly declaring her HIV status.

Bapela, a teacher at Ratlhagana High School for 14 years, discovered she was HIV-positive after going for her annual medical checkup in February.

After her disclosure this week, Bapela realised how desperately people needed support when testing HIV-positive. "When you come out, you need support. You don't need people throwing blame at you," said an emotional Bapela, who lost four colleagues to HIV/Aids between 2000 and 2005.

Bapela's mission to halt the spread of Aids in schools and in her community appears to be doomed because of the general reluctance among teachers and her community to embrace those who dare to go public about their HIV status.

Another stumbling block in the fight against HIV/Aids in schools is the failure by some provincial departments to spend the government's conditional HIV/Aids grant for schools within the prescribed one-year period.

The grant is aimed at, among other things, training teachers in sexuality education and how to integrate HIV/Aids issues into the school curriculum, as well as establishing care and support groups for orphans and vulnerable children.

Two of the biggest culprits fingered for underspending were the KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo departments, which collectively cater for about 4.4 million pupils.

KwaZulu-Natal only spent R23.9-million of its R35.2-million budget while Limpopo had spent only half of its R31-million budget by the end of last year.

Limpopo's HIV/Aids programme is being further hampered by the provincial education department's failure to appoint a permanent co-ordinator for the project.

The national Education Department's acting chief financial officer, Theuns Tredoux, said the underspending in Limpopo had occurred largely because of three vacant positions ù for two programme managers as well as a financial manager.

He said the department was forced to withhold a transfer of R8.8-million to KwaZulu-Natal in January because the province would not have been able to fulfil its commitments by the end of March.

"The province experienced delays in the approval of tenders that led to some activities amounting to approximately R9-million not taking place as projected," he said.

KwaZulu-Natal's superintendent-general of education, Cassius Lubisi, said last year's strike had seriously affected teacher training.

Gelekedle Secondary School outside Vryheid, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, is among hundreds of schools in Lubisi's province that could have benefited from the unspent Aids millions that went back to national Treasury.

Although 94 of Gelekedle's 1022 pupils are HIV-positive and five pupils died of Aids- related illnesses in the past two years, the department has provided life skills training to only one teacher.

The school's principal, Mandlakayisa Mdanda, said the teacher who had been trained only had a matric qualification and was also absent from school regularly.

A total of 28 pupils have fallen pregnant at Mdanda's school so far this year.

"When the pregnancy rate is too high, it goes without saying there is a danger of contracting HIV," he said.

Eric Ganz, co-ordinator of the life skills HIV/Aids programme in North West, said at least three life orientation teachers should receive training if their schools had a pupil enrolment of about 1000.

Teachers trained in the different provinces in the past financial year include 1070 in the Western Cape, 5107 in Gauteng, 2040 in the Eastern Cape, 2086 in the Free State, 1299 in the Northern Cape and 347 in Limpopo.

The Free State, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng spent their total budget, while North West spent 91% and Mpumalanga 93% of its budget.

Eugene Meyer, director of budget management in the Western Cape Education Department, said every school in the province had an HIV/Aids co-ordinator.

"Provinces suffer from a relatively high degree of underspending due to under-capacity. Yet the average South African teenager has a one in four chance of becoming HIV- positive by the age of 30."

Eastern Cape Education spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said 120 caregivers had been trained in 100 schools to take care of orphans and vulnerable children.

Bapela said: "My message to my pupils is: 'Don't die before your actual time because there is support and medication.'"

But she said that teachers were still uncomfortable about discussing issues involving sex and HIV/Aids.

"It's still taboo, which is a problem," she said.

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