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Youth are windows of hope - Increase health and social support for tertiary students
Educators Association for Human Rights (EAHR)
August 19, 2006

Members of Educators Association for Human Rights (EAHR) have been compelled by the savage life students in tertiary institutions of Zimbabwe are living. Our concern is the life styles our students are leading – a life style that promotes the spread of HIV/AIDS. Such life style we believe is a manifest of inadequate social support given to these future leaders. We strongly believe that ways of reducing the behaviour likely to promote the spread of HIV/AIDS in Colleges and Universities are;

• Abolition of the privatisation of canteens.
• Provision of adequate support loan schemes by government - at current inflationary rate
• Unconditional access to free health facilities by students in colleges
• Access to ARVs by those already infected.

We appeal to government to consider the above listed plight of students in their budgetary allocation for 2007. The association also takes this opportunity to remind the government that student welfare at colleges is a responsibility of government and they therefore should not renege on this very important aspect of student life.

According to the Zimbabwe Human Development Report 2003, Education has not been spared by HIV/AIDS, especially because it caters for young adults who in this case are the hardest hit by the scourge. On average an estimate of 30% of students are likely to be infected during or soon after completion of their tertiary education and most of them are likely to die of AIDS related illnesses before they turn 40 years. Tertiary institutions are human intensive and this makes students particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.

Also according to the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, AIDS related deaths among teachers rose by 40% in 2000 – 2001.

While the prevalence of HIV among students in tertiary institutions is not known, evidence and activity on the ground suggest that there is a high infection rate in this group. Young females are known to engage in relationships with men 5-10 older than themselves. A common practice in colleges is one where teachers/lecturers coerce female students into having sex in exchange for better grades and other favours. Both male and female students are known to be involved in transactional sex for food , accommodation transport and other luxuries. With the current harsh economic climate it is common knowledge that Zimbabwean tertiary students are surviving on a shoe string budget thus making them very vulnerable to abuse of all kind. It is common knowledge that female students indulge with "Big guys" in town, some of whom pay handsomely for unprotected penetrative sex. Because most colleges and universities in Zimbabwe can not provide accommodation for all students, many students have to commute to and fro campus. With the ever escalating costs of transport, many female students find themselves "trapped" in "sex for a free ride affair" with commuter omnibus Drivers, Touts and Conductors.

Male students on the other hand are reportedly cashing in by acting as middlemen between female students and "the big guys in town." The male students who are handsomely "rewarded" for their role use the proceeds to buy food, luxury and "drink". Furthermore these youngsters are increasingly getting into the habit of dating the so called sugar mummies who are "moneyed" in exchange for niceties like meals, clothes and free holidays. Regrettably the economic situation in Zimbabwe continue to deteriorate to unprecedented levels much to the chagrin of these vulnerable youngsters. It is no secret that HIV/AIDS is wrecking havoc on the 15 - 49 age group where most of our young adults in colleges and universities belong. Needless to say this is the group that is most reproductive and productive. Given that most HIV infected people die within 10 years of infection, it is therefore inculculable to ponder on the magnitude of human resource loss in the aforementioned age group. The impact on manpower development in Zimbabwe of this reality is too ghastly to contemplate. The level of wastage in economic terms, considering government and stakeholders' investment in this sector is astronomical to say the least.

The loss of teachers, learners and the growing number of orphans and children with special needs, high stress and anxiety levels all points to an education system in dire need of salvation. The lecture rooms and classrooms have become one big complex affair where tutor and learner have to grapple with the hash realities of the affected and infected. Learners and Tutors alike, infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, exhibit erratic attendance to Lectures and or Lessons. This invariably lead to lower attainment levels in input and studies by tutors and students respectively. This is certainly an indication of crumbling educational standards in Zimbabwe. Very soon it would be very sad to realise that all effort by stakeholders in education will come to naught with the resultant frustration in human development affecting every sector of the economy.

Youths are the windows of hope, yet students have become extremely vulnerable due to the prevailing economic situation. Instead of the tertiary education providing an avenue for improved understanding and hence successful intervention against the spread of HIV/AIDS, it has become a conduit for the virus and a death trap for the human development in Zimbabwe.

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