Marseille 2007
| Abstract #281 - Impact of HIV/AIDS on South African educators | ||||
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Session: 36.3: Prevention lessons (Parallel) on Tuesday @ 14.00-16.00 in 5 Chaired by Theo Sandfort, William Zule Authors: Presenting Author: Ms Julia Louw - Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa |
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| Additional Authors: Dr Olive Shisana, Prof Karl Peltzer, | ||||
| Aim: South African teachers, just like communities they come from, have a high HIV/AIDS prevalence. Consequently, they have a high attrition and absenteeism rate. Given the critical role that they play as teachers and caretakers of children its necessary to examine the impact of HIV/AIDS on educators. | ||||
| Method / Issue: A national probability sample survey was conducted among educators in South African public schools as part of a larger study. The main issues investigated in this sub-study, are having family members, colleagues, learners and/or community members living with HIV/AIDS and the impact that has on their ability to teach. | ||||
| Results / Comments: It was common for educators to have family members who are living with HIV/AIDS (25.7%), to have colleagues who are HIV positive (8.8%), to have learners who are afflicted with HIV/AIDS (23.6%) and to have community members who are sero-positive (54.6%). Because of this heavy burden of HIV/AIDS, educators were more likely to miss school and attend funerals, take care of affected family members and learners and also take on extra classes to teach for their ailing colleagues. Consequently, almost half of them indicated that they experienced stress, 10.6% have been hospitalized and they suffered from hypertension (15.6%), ulcers (9.1%), and diabetes (4.5%). | ||||
| Discussion: HIV/AIDS affects educators, there is therefore a need to reduce HIV incidence among teachers and in the community where they live through comprehensive targeted programmes in order to sustain quality education to our learners. | ||||
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