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Zimbabwe Teachers Association Membership AIDS Education Project
ZIMTA
March 03, 2002
Summary
ZIMTA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have entered
into a partnership in order to implement intervention strategies
and activities to help curb the spread of HIV and AIDS among teachers
in Zimbabwe. The focus of the ZIMTA/AFT HIV/AIDS project is on education,
awareness, and prevention.
The goal of ZIMTA/AFT is to create a learning environment for both
students and educators in which lifestyle choice and low-risk behaviour
can be taught and sustained. In addition to targeting teachers,
ZIMTA/AFT carves out a crucial role for school principals at all
levels in making schools low- rather than high-risk environments.
This approach involves helping principals to recognise the problem
and communicate its gravity, both among themselves and to teachers
and students.
ZIMTA/AFT is motivated by the conviction that morals and values
among teachers need to be reassessed. In short, these organisations
hold that the education system needs to embrace change at every
level so that teachers may be themselves be educated about, and
to make personal changes in light of, the problem of HIV/AIDS.
Main Communication Strategies
ZIMTA leaders will identify key decision makers at all levels and
initiate a qualitative response to mitigate and manage the HIV/AIDS
problem. The initiative will mobilise teachers and principals through
study sections that focus on the topic of initiating and sustaining
change. These sessions will be structured by efforts to:
- review and revise policies,
such as sick leave policies, and regulations;
- empower teachers and principals
to respond in a timely way to the initiative;
- collect data about the
problem of HIV/AIDS in the schools;
- cultivate partnerships
with the Ministries of Health and Education, NGOs, and the Social
Welfare Departments;
- create local networks and
support groups to enable personnel to share information and prevention
strategies;
- create an HIV/AIDS hotline
at ZIMTA offices throughout the country;
- develop educational material
for teachers from various sectors so that they might modify and
enrich their curricula, promote choice, and encourage the adoption
of sustainable changes in behaviour.
- address the problem of
marginalisation of the infected and affected by involving them
in teachers workshops as resource persons;
- establish permanent HIV/AIDS
management structures at all levels of the Association; and
- develop a curriculum of
lifestyle change for teachers and principals.
Key Points
Teachers are among the three groups infected at the highest rate
in Zimbabwe (the other two being the army and the police). This
phenomenon has led to a loss of experienced personnel and a decline
in the quality of education. The problem stems, in large part, from
insufficient training in HIV/AIDS. First, while some teachers' colleges
train would-be teachers in this area, the demand for teachers trained
to discuss HIV/AIDS with their students is still unmet, and is growing.
Second, these training programs do not provide concrete guidance
as to teachers should work to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS.
The disease has, more specifically, influenced the education sector
in several ways, all of which engender system inefficiency or outright
failure. First, educators suffering with HIV/AIDS have not been
adequately attentive to their students as a result of poor performance
and decrease in time with students. In fact, ill teachers are thrown
out of the system for 90 days after frequent absences. Many, then,
drag themselves into the classroom to teach even when they are very
ill. There is a high level of attrition due to chronic illness as
well as death, relocation, job change, and retirement. There is
an associated depleted number of principals all levels. Second,
the educational experience of students with HIV/AIDS is impaired.
Girls with HIV/AIDS are the first to be removed from schools.
There is an increase in the number of orphans, many of whom end
up as caregivers of ill relatives. In short, there is an overall
decline in enrollment due to HIV/AIDS.
The ZIMTA/AFT initiative grew out of the realisation that the low
ratio of trained teachers to students is adversely affecting the
quality of the educational experience and levels of enrollment.
Teachers have been called poor educators about the problem of HIV/AIDS,
as some of them have become poor role models. They lack the necessary
knowledge on the issue, but most HIV and AIDS materials are designed
for students rather than for teachers.
Furthermore, although behaviour change is urgently required on the
part of teachers, this change cannot be achieved in an environment
where mixed messages abound.
For more information contact:
Roseline Mangota, ZIMTA National HIV/AIDS Coordinator
rmangota@yahoo.com
Sourced from the Communication Initiative website:
http://www.comminit.com/pdskdv22002/sld-4153.html
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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