Aids 'decimating' teacher corps
2004-04-05 23:28
Pretoria - About 50 000 teachers will die of Aids-related diseases between 2001 and 2010.
This is the estimate of Professor Graham Hall of the University of the Witwatersrand, who warns that the government, the community and the education profession should share responsibility to deal with this crisis.
Hall analysed the impact of the Aids pandemic on the supply and demand of teachers in South Africa.
He found there might not be enough newly trained teachers to replace those who retired, resigned or the 50 000 expected to die because of Aids-related diseases.
"It is important to recruit students for educational training to ensure that future supply is the same as the number of people leaving the profession."
A shortage of 14 000 this year
Hall said that when one used a national infection rate of 12.5% and life expectancy after HIV infection of 10 years, one can expect teacher deaths to increase from about 1 000 a year in 2002 to 10 000 a year in 2010.
A national audit in the mid-nineties showed an oversupply of teachers.
In 1994, 26 000 new teachers qualified, but by 2001, this figure had dropped to 5 000.
This trend is partly ascribed to the incorporation of teachers' colleges into higher-education institutions.
Hall projects a shortage of 14 000 teachers for 2004.