HEALTH-NAMIBIA: Children Seen As Window of Hope for HIV Prevention

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Catherine Sasman

WINDHOEK, Apr 4 2005 (IPS) - Namibia has identified the need to strengthen sexual health education in school curriculum in response to the threat being posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

For the past eight years, sexual health education has been included in the curriculum. But it focused largely on knowledge, and lacked acquisition of essential skills and the formation of positive values and attitudes.

Namibia ranks as one of the five countries in the world most affected by HIV/AIDS, with an overall rate of 22.5 percent among sexually active adults. The pandemic has already caused life expectancy at birth in Namibia to drop from 58.8 years in 1995 to 43 in 2000, according to the country’s 2001 Population and Housing Census.

By 2000 deaths in the age group 15 to 49 accounted for 50 percent of all deaths in hospitals, it said. Of this group, young people between the ages of 10 to 24 years were estimated to account for up to 60 percent of all new HIV infections, according to the 2001 Population and Housing Census.

These figures forced the ministry of education to accept the horror that underlay the statistics, and to more actively shed its former blind negligence and reluctance to address socially sensitive topics with more vigour. ‘’There is increasing recognition that the education sector has an important role to play in the prevention of HIV infection,” noted Patti Swartz, a senior official at the ministry of education.

The implementation of a strategic and operational plan on HIV and AIDS started in 2001. According to Swartz, the plan lays out ways to refine and implement strategies in particular areas that are consistent with, and go beyond, objectives laid out for the ministry of education in the National Strategic Plan on HIV and AIDS for 1999 to 2004. This was preceded with a countrywide study with recommendations to curriculum panels to assist in the curriculum integration process.

HIV/AIDS education is now included in primary as well as junior secondary classes. But Marianna van Graan, senior researcher at the National Institute for Educational Development (NIED), said the strategy is not pursued aggressively in the senior secondary levels due to external examinations at these stages.

As a result of the high school-leaving rate that occurs after completing primary school, the ministry has identified the need for all learners to have core knowledge, skills and attitudes to protect them against HIV infectious behaviour by the end of primary education.

In addition, learners of this phase of school are usually between 10 and 14 years of age, and this group is seen as the ‘window of hope’ for HIV prevention. The vast majority of learners in this age – education authorities assume û are not sexually active and are therefore considered key recipients of behaviour forming education.

The study, done in schools to assist curriculum integration process, showed that Namibian learners need and want comprehensive sexual health, HIV and AIDS education to prepare them to lead sexually healthy lives and manage the impact HIV/AIDS are having on them. In the upper primary phase, learners were more concerned with the ‘big picture’ of HIV/AIDS, and of getting an ‘explanation’ for the disease than of specific details regarding HIV/AIDS and sex.

David Sampson, education officer at NIED, said the ministry of education has made significant inroads as far as the inclusion and integration of health education, and particularly HIV/AIDS education since 1997, are concerned. ‘’Previously HIV and AIDS education was addressed in carrier subjects like Life Science and Biology,” he explained. ‘’This has changed where each learning area now integrate HIV/AIDS education. We saw the need for the entire curriculum to be a response to this.”

Sampson said each subject looks at the impact of HIV/AIDS from a different area. ‘’We are trying to avoid repetition of course work as far as possible,” he said.

Asked how teachers û the implementers of the curricula are coping with HIV/AIDS teaching, Sampson acknowledged that many, particularly in rural-based schools, regard it as sensitive because of the sexuality dimension to the pandemic. ‘’We also have a multi-cultural society where we have to avoid, at all costs, situations where certain things are culturally insensitive. We, therefore, would refrain from statements such as ‘circumcision is bad’ but would supplant words like ‘bad’ with ‘risky’ instead,” Sampson added.

Van Graan, referring to the study done in schools, noted that it found encouraging signs that principals and teachers are increasingly embracing HIV/AIDS training. ‘’Many schools have since formed HIV/AIDS clubs. Overall the responses were more positive than expected,” van Graan added. She admitted that many teachers still feel ‘’unsure” in their approaches, and not clear how parents would appreciate sex education.

Under the United Nations Global Fund initiative more teachers are being trained in HIV/AIDS education. This programme further supports the development of learning materials. These, according to van Graan, have had a great impact on teachers’ attitudes.

‘’Learners’ families are usually impacted by the HIV/AIDS scourge, so we often see the issue of sigmatisation, but attitudes (of both learner and teacher) are changing. This is just something that takes time,” van Graan commented.

Phillipe Talavera, author of the book ‘Challenging the Namibian Perception of Sexuality’, said HIV/AIDS is being addressed at schools with increasing ease. ‘’It is definitely getting easier to get teachers involved, perhaps because people are more used to talk about the disease. It is becoming less of a taboo,” he felt.

Formerly, he said, HIV/AIDS education did not form part of the official duties of teachers, but this has since changed.

Talavera said parents seem relieved by the increased role schools are playing in HIV/AIDS education. ‘’They are very happy that somebody else is talking about it. Most parents realise that someone has to address the matter, but it still is difficult to get parents involved,” he said.

Swartz, however, said curriculum changes or emphasis will not result in major behavioural change if not supported and echoed in society at large. ‘’If we only affect changes in schools and not elsewhere, how are people’s behaviour likely to change?” she asked. ‘’In many of our cultures older men, often relatives, are expected to sleep with young girls as a form of initiation. These older men must have had so many other sexual encounters, and still it is considered an acceptable practice,” Swartz said.

‘’The best a school can do is to provide information to learners. What is more important is to have extracurricular activities outside the classroom. Information inside the classroom is just one element to the whole approach,” Talavera said.

Apart from Namibia, other countries badly hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the 13-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) are Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, Zambia and South Africa.

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