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ABIDJAN, Nov 28 2006 (IPS) – Education officials in Côte d Ivoire are revising how children are taught about the dangers of HIV/AIDS in the West African country, this as statistics from June 2006 show prevalence in schools to be at four percent.
The national HIV prevalence rate is 4.7 percent, also according to the 2006 figures down from seven percent in 1991.
In the past, we contented ourselves with mentioning the wearing of condoms or with skimming over the issue during class, Méa Kouadio, a technical advisor to the national education minister, told IPS. But now, he added, officials are urgently promoting abstinence for young people and condom use by adults through a new curriculum adopted for the 2006-2007 school year.
The new programme integrates modules of preventive education based on Lifeskills/AIDS , an approach that aims at a complete change of behaviour in the face of the pandemic, noted Kouadio. ( Lifeskills refers to increasing knowledge and strengthening psychosocial skills regarding AIDS.)
This form of teaching on HIV/AIDS has been integrated into four secondary school subjects ethics and civic education, life and earth sciences, music education and the visual arts and three topics offered at Centres for Leadership and Professional Development: science and technology, ethics and civic education, and educational and cultural activities.
Textbooks for the new AIDS programme have been printed at a cost of 100,000 dollars with a grant from Japan, said Kouadio. Education supervisors have received training for the initiative, and are expected to pass on their knowledge to teachers.
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The different courses will really compliment the fight against AIDS, especially those on abstinence, because many students are not old enough yet to be having sex. They must be made aware early on of the need to abstain from risky behaviour, said Guillaume Kpan, a teacher in Abidjan, the financial capital.
Alphonse Kadio, a psychologist living in Abidjan, also welcomes the new HIV/AIDS teaching initiative, noting that children are still getting inadequate information at home about how to avoid contracting the HI-virus.
Despite advice given to parents that they should talk to their children about sex, most of them don t, he told IPS.
Yet, It s no longer shameful to discuss AIDS, he added. Today, at least one in two children have heard of it. We now have to zero in on the problem with them and show them the devastating effects of the scourge, as well as the main weapon young people have at their disposal abstinence.
For its part, the Abidjan-based Collective of Non-Governmental Organisations Fighting Against AIDS (Collectif d Organisations non gouvernementales de lutte contre le SIDA, COS-CI), would like to see authorities go a step further.
Speaking, reading and writing about AIDS is good, but not enough, notes the grouping. Our young sisters are always the victims of unwanted pregnancies and everyone knows that this can be accompanied by sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). We propose that condoms should be distributed to pupils for weekends and ahead of school holidays.
Many Ivorian schoolgirls become pregnant each year. In Abidjan, school health authorities identified 600 pregnancies during 2005, including 12 cases of HIV. Elsewhere, in the central Dimbokro region, 65 pregnancies occurred during the 2005-2006 school year according to COS-CI.
This is explained by the fact that some female pupils do not have any information on contraceptive methods, says André Kouamé of the Centre for Urban Health in Dimbokro, which specialises in the health of schoolchildren and university students.
In addition, others are susceptible to having their first sexual experiences when they come of age, and get pregnant through recklessness or for socio-economic reasons, he added, noting that certain female students who live away from home often face financial difficulties during the school year and prostitute themselves to survive.
According to Kouamé, 3.4 percent of the 65 girls pregnant in Dimbokro had STDs while two had contracted HIV. But, he says rates of STD infection are generally higher: Many of the students suffer from STDs. Unfortunately, they avoid going to clinics, and self-medicate.
But it s not only pupils who are at risk from HIV.
According to the most recent estimates (from 2003) of the West and Central African Network for Research in Education, based in the Malian capital of Bamako, an average of five teachers die of AIDS-related causes every week in Côte d Ivoire.
The earliest figures on this trend date back to the period of October 1996 to June 1998, and indicate that 69.41 percent of deaths among primary school teachers were attributable to HIV/AIDS this according to the United Nations Children s Fund. For secondary school teachers, the figure was 37.25 percent.
Awareness is not only for pupils. It s something that should initially concern the educator. If he or she has realised the harm that this scourge can cause, it stands to reason that the teacher will transmit this message to children without problems, said Kadio.
Of equal concern is the possible transmission of HIV from teachers to their pupils.
HIV/AIDS is already responsible for many deaths among the teachers themselves. But, studies in this milieu never determine if the victims had relations with their students, (although) we know that certain grades obtained in class by the pupils result from these disgraceful practices between teachers and pupils, said Kadio.
These developments are taking place against a background of political instability. Côte d Ivoire has been divided into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south since a failed coup of 2002. Rebels say they took up arms to protest against marginalisation of people living in the north of the country.
