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Children - Appendix 5: Responses in other countries
COMMUNICATION FROM JOHN WILLIAMSON
Below are some thoughts on helping children affected by AIDS to stay in
school and prepare to support themselves.
In many countries keeping children in school is one of the most frequently
cited concerns among HIV/AIDS affected households. If the cumulative impact
of the disease causes an increase in the national school dropout rate, more
severely affected countries may have, on the one hand, greater difficulty
replacing the more highly educated and skilled workers who are dying of
HIV/AIDS and on the other, growing numbers of disaffected youth and young
adults unable to support themselves adequately.
Paying school expenses can be a prohibitive financial burden for families
affected by HIV/AIDS, and girls, on whom much of a community's future
well-being will depend, are often forced to drop out before boys. When
household funds for school are short or help with work is needed at home,
girls are often made to drop out first. Undereducating girls, however, has
damaging long term consequences for the society. Research in Africa has
found that a 10% gain in female literacy resulted in a proportional drop in
the infant mortality rate. In Kenya it was also found that, for every
1,000 girls completing an additional year of school, two maternal deaths
and 45 infant deaths would be prevented. Initiatives to help
HIV/AIDS affected children to stay in school should consider giving priority
to girls.
Government fees are typically a small part of the expenses families face to
send a child to school. Many schools are able to function only by charging
their own fees, which can be substantial. Other expenses include uniforms,
books, and supplies. The additional expenses and loss of cash income or
agricultural labor that come with illness force families to redirect their
financial resources. Children are often forced to drop out of school before
they are orphaned, and school expenses may no longer be affordable when
children have to leave school to care for ailing parents and take on adult
work responsibilities.
Death of teachers due to HIV/AIDS is another serious problem many
governments are facing in maintaining the quality and availability of
education. In Zambia, for example, the mortality rate of teachers in
Zambian schools is 4 percent per year, and between four and five teachers
die each day. While not all of these deaths are caused by AIDS, the
epidemic is the likely explanation of why the teachers' death rate is
significantly higher than that of the adult population in general. A recent
report indicated that in Swaziland, a smaller country than Zambia, three to
four teachers are dying per day. In 1993, it was estimated that, due to
HIV/AIDS, Swaziland would spend almost one and a half million U.S. dollars
in 1996 to replace and retrain teachers.
A recent controlled study on the situation of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS
carried out in four districts in western Kenya found that children, one or
both of whose parents had died of HIV/AIDS, were significantly
disadvantaged compared to other children. The study included 646 children,
one or both of whose parents had died of HIV/AIDS, and a matched control
group of 1,239 children. Among children in the control group, 73 percent
had both parents living and 27 percent had lost one or both parents from
causes other than the epidemic. The study also found that 52 percent of the
children orphaned by HIV/AIDS were not in school, compared to two percent
of the control group. Among the children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, 56 percent
of the girls and 47 percent of the boys were not in school. Also, school
performance and health were poorer among the children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
From national to community levels, there have been a variety of responses
made to help orphans and other vulnerable children stay in school, but
there are no easy answers to the resource deficits HIV/AIDS is causing.
Providing scholarships is a direct and efficient solution, but the expense
makes it difficult to sustain this activity as an escalating number of
children drop out of school. Some ministries of education have waived
school fees for orphans, which can help, but the resulting deficits in
ministry and school budgets have to be made up from other sources.
Some organizations have provided supplies and equipment or constructed
classrooms for schools prepared to accept orphans. Community schools are
another approach. Some communities have started community schools to
provide educational opportunities for children unable to afford the costs
associated with regular schools. Such schools are less expensive per pupil
than government schools, but communities face significant challenges to
support them indefinitely.
Measures to improve household economic capacity, particularly where the
participants are women, can be one of the most important and sustainable
ways to address problems of educational access. A recent evaluation of the
Uganda Women's Finance Trust, a microfinance program, found that
participants used income secured through the program to pay both
educational and health expenses, "It is interesting and important to note
that UWFT's services are allowing clients to make substantial investments
in sending children to school and curative health care. Indeed, these (and
particularly education) repeatedly emerge as the most valued results of
access to credit."
Some Possible Responses
There is no one best way to help prevent HIV/AIDS affected children from
dropping out of school. Such action must respond to the specific pressures
they face. Some have difficulty paying for fees, uniforms, books and
supplies. In many households children's labor is needed at home to care
for a sick parent, do household or agricultural work or earn
money. Another factor that effects how much families are willing to
sacrifice to keep children in school is the extent that they see education
as a worthwhile investment of time and resources. Stigma and
discrimination have also prevented some children from staying in school.
- One of the most important things that governments can do is allocate the
resources necessary to make at least primary education free. Growing donor
interest in mitigating the impacts of AIDS, may help make this option more
feasible.
- Paying School Expenses -- Where the barrier to staying in school is
largely economic, perhaps the most common program activity has been to pay
school or vocational training expenses for orphans, and sometimes other
vulnerable children. This direct approach is effective but is difficult to
extend to large numbers of children or to sustain.
- Collaborating with Schools -- Some NGOs have supported community efforts
to repair or construct needed infrastructure in return for a commitment by
the school to allow needy children to attend.
- Some orphans are not in school simply because their guardians do not
send them. Community groups concerned with orphans and vulnerable children
in Zambia and Malawi have helped some children return to school by
persuading their guardians that these children need to be in school.
Appeals by local religious groups, emphasis on traditional values and
responsibilities, parenting skills classes, and sensitization to children's
rights can help motivate some care providers to send children to school.
- Day care programmes can free older children and adolescents, particularly
girls, who are otherwise expected to stay home to care for their younger
siblings.
- Special Schools for Working Children -- Arranging halfday school hours
for children who must work has been another approach.
- Education for Working Children -- Attending school is difficult for
thousands of children who have to work to survive. Some community schools
have been established that operate on a half day basis, allowing children
who must work the time to do so. Machuma schools in Nairobi have also
served as collection sites for the materials they sell for recycling.
- Increasing household income - In principle, one of the most sustainable
ways to help a child to remain in school is to enable the household to
increase its income. Effective programming of this type, however, is
difficult and requires solid technical expertise. Microfinance services
involving solidarity group savings and lending, when operated according to
state-of-the-art sustainability principles, have enabled some households
to send their children school.
- Primary education curricula in some developing countries, particularly in
rural areas, have been criticized as too academic and not sufficiently
oriented toward the types of work students will actually do when they
finish school. Where education is not seen as being of practical value,
families are not willing to make sacrifices to keep children in
school. Children affected by HIV/AIDS, who need to be able to support
themselves at an early stage, and many other students, can benefit when
curricula are adjusted to include information and skills relevant to local
vocational realties.
- Vocational training, either formal or nonformal, can be valuable, if it
helps young people gain marketable skills. Technical market analysis
information is needed to assess whether training in specific areas will
likely lead to employment or self employment, and those experienced with job
placement can help identify the inputs and abilities that contribute to
success. A ministry of labor or industry may be able to provide
information on skills that are in demand. Provisions should also be made
for those who complete training to obtain the basic tools and equipment
they will need to seek employment. However, if placement of beneficiaries
into an established training programme is being considered, find out first
how successful recent graduates have been in obtaining jobs. If training
simply imparts technical skills, but does not lead to employment, it not
only consumes resources that might be put to better use, but also
discourages participants who have invested their time and effort.
- Apprenticeships are another nonformal approach with both advantages and
limitations. Because participants learn in the established work places of
artisans, it is not necessary to establish special training
facilities. Additional tools or equipment may have to be provided for an
apprentice, but extra hands and tools serve as an incentive for an artisan
to participate because they can mean increased production. Some
apprentices are able to continue working for an artisan after completing
their training. A learning advantage for apprentices is that they not only
gain technical skills, but also they are exposed to the workplace
environment where they can learn some of the management skills needed to
run a business. This approach is limited, however, by the number of
artisans willing to take on apprentices and the capacity of the market to
absorb those who are trained.
John Williamson
Technical Advisor
Displaced Children and Orphans Fund of USAID
Below are some thoughts on helping children affected by AIDS to stay in
school and prepare to support themselves.
In many countries keeping children in school is one of the most frequently
cited concerns among HIV/AIDS affected households. If the cumulative impact
of the disease causes an increase in the national school dropout rate, more
severely affected countries may have, on the one hand, greater difficulty
replacing the more highly educated and skilled workers who are dying of
HIV/AIDS and on the other, growing numbers of disaffected youth and young
adults unable to support themselves adequately.
Paying school expenses can be a prohibitive financial burden for families
affected by HIV/AIDS, and girls, on whom much of a community's future
well-being will depend, are often forced to drop out before boys. When
household funds for school are short or help with work is needed at home,
girls are often made to drop out first. Undereducating girls, however, has
damaging long term consequences for the society. Research in Africa has
found that a 10% gain in female literacy resulted in a proportional drop in
the infant mortality rate. In Kenya it was also found that, for every
1,000 girls completing an additional year of school, two maternal deaths
and 45 infant deaths would be prevented. Initiatives to help
HIV/AIDS affected children to stay in school should consider giving priority
to girls.
Government fees are typically a small part of the expenses families face to
send a child to school. Many schools are able to function only by charging
their own fees, which can be substantial. Other expenses include uniforms,
books, and supplies. The additional expenses and loss of cash income or
agricultural labor that come with illness force families to redirect their
financial resources. Children are often forced to drop out of school before
they are orphaned, and school expenses may no longer be affordable when
children have to leave school to care for ailing parents and take on adult
work responsibilities.
Death of teachers due to HIV/AIDS is another serious problem many
governments are facing in maintaining the quality and availability of
education. In Zambia, for example, the mortality rate of teachers in
Zambian schools is 4 percent per year, and between four and five teachers
die each day. While not all of these deaths are caused by AIDS, the
epidemic is the likely explanation of why the teachers' death rate is
significantly higher than that of the adult population in general. A recent
report indicated that in Swaziland, a smaller country than Zambia, three to
four teachers are dying per day. In 1993, it was estimated that, due to
HIV/AIDS, Swaziland would spend almost one and a half million U.S. dollars
in 1996 to replace and retrain teachers.
A recent controlled study on the situation of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS
carried out in four districts in western Kenya found that children, one or
both of whose parents had died of HIV/AIDS, were significantly
disadvantaged compared to other children. The study included 646 children,
one or both of whose parents had died of HIV/AIDS, and a matched control
group of 1,239 children. Among children in the control group, 73 percent
had both parents living and 27 percent had lost one or both parents from
causes other than the epidemic. The study also found that 52 percent of the
children orphaned by HIV/AIDS were not in school, compared to two percent
of the control group. Among the children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, 56 percent
of the girls and 47 percent of the boys were not in school. Also, school
performance and health were poorer among the children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
From national to community levels, there have been a variety of responses
made to help orphans and other vulnerable children stay in school, but
there are no easy answers to the resource deficits HIV/AIDS is causing.
Providing scholarships is a direct and efficient solution, but the expense
makes it difficult to sustain this activity as an escalating number of
children drop out of school. Some ministries of education have waived
school fees for orphans, which can help, but the resulting deficits in
ministry and school budgets have to be made up from other sources.
Some organizations have provided supplies and equipment or constructed
classrooms for schools prepared to accept orphans. Community schools are
another approach. Some communities have started community schools to
provide educational opportunities for children unable to afford the costs
associated with regular schools. Such schools are less expensive per pupil
than government schools, but communities face significant challenges to
support them indefinitely.
Measures to improve household economic capacity, particularly where the
participants are women, can be one of the most important and sustainable
ways to address problems of educational access. A recent evaluation of the
Uganda Women's Finance Trust, a microfinance program, found that
participants used income secured through the program to pay both
educational and health expenses, "It is interesting and important to note
that UWFT's services are allowing clients to make substantial investments
in sending children to school and curative health care. Indeed, these (and
particularly education) repeatedly emerge as the most valued results of
access to credit."
Some Possible Responses
There is no one best way to help prevent HIV/AIDS affected children from
dropping out of school. Such action must respond to the specific pressures
they face. Some have difficulty paying for fees, uniforms, books and
supplies. In many households children's labor is needed at home to care
for a sick parent, do household or agricultural work or earn
money. Another factor that effects how much families are willing to
sacrifice to keep children in school is the extent that they see education
as a worthwhile investment of time and resources. Stigma and
discrimination have also prevented some children from staying in school.
- One of the most important things that governments can do is allocate the
resources necessary to make at least primary education free. Growing donor
interest in mitigating the impacts of AIDS, may help make this option more
feasible.
- Paying School Expenses -- Where the barrier to staying in school is
largely economic, perhaps the most common program activity has been to pay
school or vocational training expenses for orphans, and sometimes other
vulnerable children. This direct approach is effective but is difficult to
extend to large numbers of children or to sustain.
- Collaborating with Schools -- Some NGOs have supported community efforts
to repair or construct needed infrastructure in return for a commitment by
the school to allow needy children to attend.
- Some orphans are not in school simply because their guardians do not
send them. Community groups concerned with orphans and vulnerable children
in Zambia and Malawi have helped some children return to school by
persuading their guardians that these children need to be in school.
Appeals by local religious groups, emphasis on traditional values and
responsibilities, parenting skills classes, and sensitization to children's
rights can help motivate some care providers to send children to school.
- Day care programmes can free older children and adolescents, particularly
girls, who are otherwise expected to stay home to care for their younger
siblings.
- Special Schools for Working Children -- Arranging halfday school hours
for children who must work has been another approach.
- Education for Working Children -- Attending school is difficult for
thousands of children who have to work to survive. Some community schools
have been established that operate on a half day basis, allowing children
who must work the time to do so. Machuma schools in Nairobi have also
served as collection sites for the materials they sell for recycling.
- Increasing household income - In principle, one of the most sustainable
ways to help a child to remain in school is to enable the household to
increase its income. Effective programming of this type, however, is
difficult and requires solid technical expertise. Microfinance services
involving solidarity group savings and lending, when operated according to
state-of-the-art sustainability principles, have enabled some households
to send their children school.
- Primary education curricula in some developing countries, particularly in
rural areas, have been criticized as too academic and not sufficiently
oriented toward the types of work students will actually do when they
finish school. Where education is not seen as being of practical value,
families are not willing to make sacrifices to keep children in
school. Children affected by HIV/AIDS, who need to be able to support
themselves at an early stage, and many other students, can benefit when
curricula are adjusted to include information and skills relevant to local
vocational realties.
- Vocational training, either formal or nonformal, can be valuable, if it
helps young people gain marketable skills. Technical market analysis
information is needed to assess whether training in specific areas will
likely lead to employment or self employment, and those experienced with job
placement can help identify the inputs and abilities that contribute to
success. A ministry of labor or industry may be able to provide
information on skills that are in demand. Provisions should also be made
for those who complete training to obtain the basic tools and equipment
they will need to seek employment. However, if placement of beneficiaries
into an established training programme is being considered, find out first
how successful recent graduates have been in obtaining jobs. If training
simply imparts technical skills, but does not lead to employment, it not
only consumes resources that might be put to better use, but also
discourages participants who have invested their time and effort.
- Apprenticeships are another nonformal approach with both advantages and
limitations. Because participants learn in the established work places of
artisans, it is not necessary to establish special training
facilities. Additional tools or equipment may have to be provided for an
apprentice, but extra hands and tools serve as an incentive for an artisan
to participate because they can mean increased production. Some
apprentices are able to continue working for an artisan after completing
their training. A learning advantage for apprentices is that they not only
gain technical skills, but also they are exposed to the workplace
environment where they can learn some of the management skills needed to
run a business. This approach is limited, however, by the number of
artisans willing to take on apprentices and the capacity of the market to
absorb those who are trained.
John Williamson
Technical Advisor
Displaced Children and Orphans Fund of USAID
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