Africa

Citation

(2005), "Africa", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 18 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2005.06218dab.003

Africa

Beyond the health sector: the impact of HIV/AIDS on primary education in Nigeria

Keywords: HIV/Aids management, Primary education, Skills development

Like many African nations, Nigeria faces very high rates of HIV/AIDS infection. The country is second only to South Africa in the number of persons living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. With the highest rates of infection affecting the country’s most productive population (ages 15-49), it is becoming increasingly clear that HIV/AIDS is having an impact on many facets of society, including the education sector.

To date, little is known in regard to the potential impact of HIV/AIDS on primary education, especially at the sub-national and local levels. To address this issue, RTI, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development, recently conducted a study to examine educators’ views on the impact of HIV/AIDS on primary education in the three Nigerian states of Kano, Lagos, and Nasarawa.

The study, which involved surveying 1,350 of the state’s stakeholders – public sector school administrators, teachers, educational planners, parents, and community leaders – provides useful information about how educators view the epidemic’s impact on the education sector as well as the opportunities that can be exploited to integrate HIV/AIDS interventions into education programs.

The study gathered information on four themes:

1. 1.

   impact of HIV/AIDS on the demand for education;

2. 2.

   impact of HIV/AIDS on the supply of education;

3. 3.

   HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination in the primary education sector; and

4. 4.

   feasible interventions that can be introduced in primary schools to combat the epidemic.

Findings from the study suggest that most stakeholders do not view HIV/AIDS as having had a major impact on primary education so far, and that they believe other factors such as poverty, a lack of scholastic materials and lack of teachers have had a more negative impact on primary education over the past ten years. However, most respondents concurred that HIV/AIDS carries a heavy stigma in Nigeria. Indeed, a significant proportion of educators interviewed expressed negative attitudes toward colleagues living with HIV/AIDS. For instance, almost half of the teachers interviewed felt that HIV-positive teachers should not be allowed to teach.

There were noticeable state-level differences in reported direct impact of HIV/AIDS among respondents – nearly 20 percent of Nasarawa teachers felt that they had been exposed to HIV in the past, compared with 7 percent in Lagos and 3 percent in Kano. More respondents in Nasarawa reported having cared for someone infected with HIV compared to respondents in the other two states, and there was more reported teacher absenteeism due to illness (of self or family members) and funerals in Nasarawa compared to the other two states. While all the absenteeism due to illness and burials was not HIV/AIDS-related, available HIV sentinel data indicates a significantly higher prevalence of HIV among adults in Nasarawa compared with those in Lagos and Kano.

Given the current HIV/AIDS situation in the country, the impact of HIV/AIDS on primary education will likely increase. Currently, very few HIV/AIDS programs exist in the education sector and there is urgent need to scale up interventions to mitigate this impact. One intervention widely supported by all the stakeholders interviewed is the introduction of HIV/AIDS education in upper primary schools. A recently developed National Family Life and HIV Education Curriculum that is being disseminated to schools, if combined with capacity-building activities for teachers, offers an opportunity to better equip them with the relevant knowledge and skills to provide such education.

More information at: www.rti.org