ABSTRACT
The role that education plays in the life of an individual human being cannot be gainsaid. There are a number of factors that influence children‘s access to quality education. One such factor today is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The onset of HIV/AIDS has upstaged various aspects of the education sector. The sector has been adversely affected by this epidemic with the resultant effect that children are losing out on education due to the death of their parents. Some of these children are themselves infected with HIV/AIDS. It is this cadre of children who are infected that this study concentrated on. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that hamper the academic progression of children living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya with a specific reference to Nyumbani Children‘s Home – Nairobi, Kenya. Specific objectives were to: Find out the challenges faced by Nyumbani Children‘s Home in providing education to the children living with HIV/AIDS; establish the innovations adopted by the home to circumvent challenges, find out the effect of the children‘s seropositivity status on their academic performance, investigate how the learners cope with their seropositivity status and establish successful interventions and lessons that can be replicated in similar programs elsewhere. The study design used was survey. Purposive sampling technique was used to select respondents for the study. Only children in upper primary classes were involved in the study plus seven workers. There were 3 types of questionnaires: One type meant only for the children, one for workers and the other for the management. Data obtained were analysed using descriptive statistics. Frequency distribution tables, pie charts and bar graphs were used in the presentation of the results and data were then analysed according to objectives, by percentages. On the gender composition of children infected with HIV/AIDS, 64.3% were male while 35.7% were female. On the gender distribution of caregivers, 43.8% were male while female were 28.6%. However, caregivers‘ gender composition is not representative since 28.6% of the respondents did not indicate their gender. The findings revealed that discrimination on the account of the child‘s seropositive status is one of the major challenges that hinder pupils‘ academic progression. Others cited are the children‘s health status, the government‘s unwillingness to take a proactive stand on the education of HIV positive children, lack of proper food and nutrition, over reliance on donors for funding thus causing donor fatigue which has a resultant negative effect on the education of the children. The findings also reveal that the children‘s awareness of their serostatus affects their performance. However, to mitigate against this, the caregivers offers them psychosocial support through periodic counselling. Also some members of the community come to visit them while others take them out for an outing. This offers them a sense of belonging. The findings of this study were used to make strong recommendations to the relevant authorities on how to improve the education of children living with HIV/AIDS. Among the recommendations made were that a serious HIV/AIDS awareness campaign should be mounted in all public and private schools, both primary and secondary, so as to create sensitization on the rights of HIV positive children.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
―In June of 1981, we saw a young gay man with the most devastating immune deficiency we had ever seen, we said, ‗we don‘t know what this is, but we hope we don‘t ever see another case like it again‘ ― (WHO, 1994 in Avert, 2006)
These words attributed to Dr. Samuel Broder then of the national cancer institute in the United States of America, remind us how much the world has changed within a quarter century since the physicians first saw the earliest cases of AIDS in hospitals in the United States, the Democratic Republic of Congo and on the slopes of Lake Victoria, East Africa. When AIDS first appeared on the global scene, no one could have predicted how the epidemic would spread across the world and how many millions of lives it would alter in one way or the other. There was no real idea what caused it and consequently no real idea on what protective measures to take against it. It is one disease that confounded human mind at that time and still does to this day. The epidemic of AIDS continues today and will continue into the foreseeable future with possibly no sign of abating (Avert,2006).
The gravity of this epidemic has been revealed in the sobering numbers reported in the epidemiological studies. It has been reported that since its emergence, this pandemic has decimated more than 25 million people worldwide and rendered millions of children orphans in its wake (UNAIDS, 2005; Avert, 2006). However, children are not only affected, but also infected. NIAID (2004), for example, it was estimated that at the end of
2003, 2.5 million children worldwide under age 15 were living with HIV/AIDS. Approximately 500,000 children under 15 had died from the virus or its associated causes in that year alone.
There is no doubt that education sector has borne the full brunt of HIV/AIDS onslaught hence hindering the academic progression of the infected and affected children. For instance, the projection on teacher mortality indicates that Kenya will lose 1.4% of its teachers each year from year 2000 till 2010 (GOK, 2003). Estimates indicate that 2.2m Kenyans are HIV positive, 1.5m have already died of AIDS. Among these are parents and guardians of school going children (GOK, 2002). As the HIV/AIDS scourge continues unabated, some of the major challenges facing the education sector include the loss of or low earning capacity caused by AIDS which makes it difficult for the infected and affected parents or guardians to support the education and training programs of their children; the increased drop out rate from education and training institutions due to the effects of HIV/AIDS and the danger caused by the HIV/AIDS epidemic to national socio- economic development and to the survival of the society (Republic of Kenya, 1999).
The parents‘ role is paramount in the academic well being of the child. HIV/AIDS has reduced many parents to bedridden status causing myriad problems to the children and the entire family. The trauma and hardship that children affected by HIV/AIDS are forced to endure cannot be overstated. They try to help, but can only watch as their parents die one after the other. Under such circumstances, there may be no or little planning for the children‘s future. A myriad of interrelated factors take their toll: grief over the death of a
parent, fear about the future, separation from siblings, distress about worsening economic circumstances and HIV-AIDS related discrimination and isolation.
The impact of HIV/AIDS on children is complex and multiphased with socio-economic cost both high and long term. Overall, AIDS is increasing the number of vulnerable, malnourished, poorly socialized and uneducated young people which in turn heighten the prospect of social instability. With scarce resources stretched well beyond their limits the impact of the pandemic is placing tremendous strain on the families, communities and governments who are attempting to help (UNAIDS 2002).
Children and adolescents need to grow up in a conducive family and community environment that provides for their changing needs, which enhances their healthy and sound development. A good number of orphans are adopted within family network. However, it is not self evident that extended families have an inexhaustible capacity to absorb the growing number of these children. Some of these children find themselves sheltered in children homes, also known as orphanages, such as Nyumbani.
Nyumbani is one of the few hospices in Kenya that caters for children who are living with HIV/AIDS. It caters for children from newborn to eighteen years of age. Father Angelo D‘Agostino, a Jesuit priest and medical doctor, from United States of America, established it in 1992. The home tries as much as possible to cater for the children‘s medical, emotional, spiritual, social and educational needs which they would otherwise
have difficulty obtaining in a normal communal environment as portrayed in the figure below.
Source: World Bank (2009)
Statement of the Problem
It is estimated that 2.2 million Kenyans are HIV positive, 1.5 million have died leaving behind 1.3 million orphans under 15 years of age and most of these orphans are themselves infected with the devastating virus. With HIV prevalence of 13% and mortality rate of 700 per day, the country is producing orphans and other vulnerable children at an alarming rate and the figure is projected to reach 2 million by the year 2010 (GOK, 2002). These children are likely to be taken care of in the child-headed
households or by widows/widowers and old caregivers, especially grandparents. They are thus likely to be exposed to difficult and impoverished socio-economic environment with their rights to grow and be educated violated.
These children are likely to be exposed to insecurity, stigmatization, poor education, medical and nutritional care, neglect, emotional vulnerability and other effects of poverty. As a result of the breakdown in cohesive social fabric of the extended families, these children find themselves homeless and vulnerable to bad social influence such as engaging in prostitution, drug peddling and becoming drug abusers. These types of activities are all conduits to faster spread of HIV/AIDS. This also explains the mode by which these children also get infected with HIV/AIDS if not acquired through the mother to child transmission. In most cases these orphans find themselves placed in orphanages or children‘s homes. Most of these homes face a myriad of challenges in trying to bring them up as wholesome members of society. Most of them operate on a shoe-string budget and as result the quality of education accorded to these children is heavily compromised. From the foregoing, it is clear that the education sector has experienced devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The pandemic is uniquely threatening to children as far as their educational well being is concerned. It is thus within this context that this study sought to investigate factors affecting the education of children living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya, but with special reference to Nyumbani Children‘s home.
