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HIV/AIDS and the demand for primary school places

How many children will be eligible for primary school in the next 10 years? How will HIV/AIDS affect these numbers and the ability of children to attend school? Researchers from the UK University of Liverpool investigate the potential impact of the epidemic on the demand for primary education in Uganda and Tanzania.

Demand for schooling is related to the number of eligible children and also whether they decide to attend classes. Policy-makers need to predict demand for education, but the HIV/AIDS epidemic makes this harder. Most children born HIV-positive do not survive to primary school age. The epidemic reduces the number of school-age children by increasing child mortality and decreasing the fertility of HIV-positive women. In addition, children from households affected by HIV/AIDS may have to care for the ill or substitute for adult labour lost through sickness or death. Such households become increasingly poor and may not be able to afford school fees.

The researchers analysed national data from Uganda and Tanzania to predict the likely numbers of primary school-age children in the next decade. They also surveyed 470 children at 12 schools in Iringa and Dodoma Districts, Tanzania, to discover factors that influence attendance. They found that:

By 2010, school-aged cohorts are likely to be smaller (by 9 to 17% in Uganda and 15 to 25% in Tanzania) than they would have been without the epidemic.
The predicted reduction in Uganda is substantially less than in Tanzania because the very high total fertility rate there (6.9 in 2001) seems stable. There is also evidence of a downward trend in HIV/AIDS prevalence rates since the mid-1990s.
In Tanzania, a recent decline in fertility rates is likely to continue and there seems to be a plateau in HIV/AIDS prevalence rates, so school-aged cohorts will decline more sharply.
In both countries, the population-reducing effect of HIV/AIDS is dwarfed by the counter-effects of high fertility. In Uganda, the expected growth in the school-aged population from 2002 to 2010 is around three per cent per year. In Tanzania, it is slightly less than one per cent.
Better school attendance is linked to higher parental income and education levels. HIV/AIDS has not greatly changed this pattern.
In rural areas there was no survey evidence of orphans being more disadvantaged than the rest of the sample in primary school non-attendance.
In urban and roadside areas, children who do not live with both their living parents are as vulnerable as orphans to non-attendance.

The impact of HIV/AIDS on enrolment demand in these countries is overshadowed by the effects of increasing poverty, inequality and social disruption. These results do not seem to justify a specific policy focus on children, especially orphans, from HIV/AIDS-affected households. General poverty-alleviating measures in education – like fee reduction or elimination, or a drive to achieve universal primary education – will have a positive effect on all vulnerable groups, including those affected by HIV/AIDS. The researchers recommend:

integrating HIV/AIDS effects within educational planning
linking the attack on HIV/AIDS directly to poverty alleviation strategies, with a particular focus on female-headed urban/roadside households
providing more flexible school arrangements to cater for the additional calls on children’s time
boosting per capita funding, diverting the savings made from smaller than predicted school cohorts to quality improvement measures
putting into practice better mechanisms for identifying all vulnerable children, not only orphans.

Source(s):
‘Estimating school enrolment demand in HIV/AIDS affected populations’, DFID Research Project Summary Research Report, by W. Gould and U. Huber, 2003

Funded by: UK Department for International Development

id21 Research Highlight: 8 March 2004

Further Information:
William Gould
Department of Geography
University of Liverpool
Liverpool
Merseyside
L69 3BX
UK

Tel: +44 (0)151 794 2853
Fax: +44 (0)151 794 2866
Contact the contributor: wtsg@liv.ac.uk

Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, UK

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