HIV/AIDS hits schools hard, affecting both teachers and pupils. What is the economic impact in the education sector? Researchers from Imperial College London estimate HIV-related costs to the Ministry of Education (MoE) and donors in Zambia. They argue for extra funds to provide an active care and prevention programme.
In Zambia, the number of deaths among primary school teachers rose from two per day in 1996 to more than four per day in 1998, largely as a result of AIDS. This is an annual loss of four per cent of all registered primary teachers, or two thirds of each year’s output of newly-trained teachers. Teaching time is also lost due to HIV-related illness. What are the financial implications of this?
The research estimated that:
- Of the 37 117 primary teachers in Zambia in 1999, 8 100 (22 per cent) were HIV positive and 840 died from AIDS that year.
- HIV/AIDS will reduce the number of teachers in 2010 from an expected 59 500 to only 50 000.
- Teacher absenteeism due to HIV-related illness will cost 12 450 teacher-years over the next decade.
- Costs to the Ministry of Education and donors were US$ 1.3 to 3.1 million in 1999 and will be US$ 10.6 to 41.3 million over the period 1999-2010.
- 71 per cent of these costs are for salaries paid to teachers absent due to HIV-associated illness, 22 per cent for training of extra teachers and seven per cent for funeral costs.
- The annual cost is a relatively small fraction of the overall MoE budget - 2.5 per cent in 1999. But spending on teacher training must increase by 26 per cent in order to meet ‘Education for All’ targets in the face of AIDS.
Other costs are harder to estimate:
- Loss of productivity of HIV-positive teachers due to psychological trauma and stigma.
- Teacher absenteeism as a result of HIV illness or death in their families.
- Absence of teachers while they attend the funerals of friends or colleagues.
These estimates do not include the extra costs of an active care and prevention response by the MoE or outreach to AIDS orphans. But the researchers point out that the education sector can make a big contribution to fighting HIV by promoting behaviour change and providing longer-term opportunities in life. An active response to the epidemic would be more expensive. It could include:
- voluntary counselling and testing for teachers
- anti-retroviral drugs for HIV-positive teachers
- curriculum changes to include HIV/AIDS education
- peer education programmes among pupils
- support for orphans.
This would need collaboration between Ministries of Health and Education, AIDS prevention organisations and civil society. But halving the incidence of HIV among teachers would save the MoE and donors around US$ 7 million over the next decade. The impact on teachers’ quality of life and morale, the quality of education and resulting social capital could be even greater.
Source(s):
‘The economic impact of HIV/AIDS on the education sector in Zambia’, AIDS
17: 1039-1044, by N. Grassly, et al, 2003
HINARI subscribers can access the full-text article here. Full document.
Funded by:
World Bank; Wellcome Trust
id21 Research Highlight: 10 October 2003
Further Information:
Nicholas Grassly
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Faculty of Medicine
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
St. Mary’s Campus
Norfolk Place
London W2 1PG
UK
Contact the contributor: n.grassly@imperial.ac.uk
Imperial College, London, UK
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'Shock to the system – HIV and education in Kenya and Tanzania'
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'HIV/AIDS, poverty and schooling: an AIDS epidemic or a poverty epidemic?'
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'Catastrophe or controllable crisis? The impact of the AIDS epidemic on
schooling in Africa'
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See id21's collection of links relevant to HIV/AIDS.
