N Pandor: Launch of Higher Education HIV and AIDS Programme

9 March 2007

The Honourable Ambassador Briet
Chairperson of Higher Education South Africa (HESA), Professor Barney
Pityana
Vice-chancellors and deputy vice-chancellors
HEAIDS Programme Director, Dr Shaidah Asmall
Chairs of University councils
Colleagues from various government departments
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to this important event marking
the launch of the HEAIDS Programme. This is a moment to truly and critically
reflect on the way forward regarding HIV and AIDS pandemic in the higher
education (HE) sector.

HIV and AIDS is the greatest public health crisis facing the world today. It
is estimated that 38,6 million people around the world have been infected with
HIV to date and AIDS has killed more than 2,8 million people. Studies show that
despite recent improved access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) and care in
many regions of the world, the pandemic claims an estimated 11 200 new HIV
infections and nearly 8 000 deaths every day.

The challenge faced by the HE sector with regard to HIV and AIDS is
succinctly captured in the following statement from the Association of African
Universities, "To a greater degree than ever before, African universities must
renew their commitment to help Africa find effective solutions to its perennial
problems of hunger, poverty and disease. They must, by their research and
teaching, strengthen their contribution to improvements in food production and
distribution, disease control and health service delivery and the general
wellbeing of their people. In particular, the HIV and AIDS crisis poses a
serious threat to African societies within which universities are situated. We
need to recognise that the solution to this problem might well lie in Africa.
African universities must in any event be at the forefront of research,
education and action in this matter."

The Ministry of Education is ultimately responsible for developing
appropriate HIV and AIDS policies and strategies for HE as a sector. But,
historically, our universities have enjoyed a high degree of autonomy and they
are used to finding solutions to the challenges they face. So I feel both
justified and comfortable in sharing this responsibility for the sector's HIV
and AIDS response with our vice-chancellors through HESA.

It is in this spirit of shared ownership of the programme, that I would like
to address this gathering. I am not going to spend these precious minutes
outlining in detail the HEAIDS goals and objectives. Everyone here has received
a folder with documents that provide that information.

Instead, I would like to use this opportunity to pose some questions about
higher education's response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic and to suggest where
we might look for answers.

What set me thinking was a book of photographs by Gideon Mendel titled, "A
broken landscape." The book confronts the impact of AIDS in South Africa and
other countries on the continent. As you turn the pages you view image after
image of emaciation and tenderness, suffering and compassion, fear and love.
These twinned opposites run through the book and the powerful pictures are
matched with very simple stories.

Edwice Zulu, a homecare volunteer says, "Janet is the main patient that I am
taking care of now. She lives very close to my home but I did not know her
before she was ill. I clean her house, I wash her, I help her taking medicines
and I cook for her and feed her. The problem is at night because Janet is
alone. There is nobody to give her water to drink or to look after her."

Edwice is from Ndola in Zambia. But there are thousands of homecare workers
in South Africa doing exactly what she does. Across this country, largely
hidden from sight, people with precious little in the way of material
possessions are making an enormous contribution to shield family, friends and
neighbours from the worst ravages of HIV and AIDS.

By way of comparison, the HE sector has infinitely more resources than
community structures including intellectually gifted and finely skilled human
resources. Our opportunities to make a difference are much larger and more
varied. Some outstanding leadership has emerged from the HE sector. It has come
for example:

* from researchers in dedicated units who apply themselves exclusively to
the puzzle posed by the HIV and AIDS pandemic
* from professors in our health science faculties who double as consultants at
public hospitals and from the registrars who work tirelessly alongside
them
* from campus managers who have developed workplace programmes
* from university based public law experts who have fought against HIV related
discrimination
* and from campus based children's rights advocates who have stood up for the
most vulnerable.

There is no question that some members of the HE community have made a huge
contribution, not just to their institutions but to the country as a whole.
However, we need to ask ourselves whether the HE sector as a whole is
supporting the national HIV and AIDS response with the vigour, skills,
knowledge, commitment and imagination that it could.

As a nationally co-ordinated effort in the fight against HIV and AIDS,
HEAIDS seeks to strengthen the capacity, systems and structures of all Higher
Education Institutes (HEIs) in managing and mitigating the causes, challenges
and consequences of HIV and AIDS in the sector and to strengthen the leadership
role that can and should be played by the HE sector.

The current HEAIDS intervention builds on a number of positive developments
from HEAIDS phase one. The primary focus of phase one was to enable
institutions to engage with the pandemic and its impact on the sub-sector. In
this regard, seed funding was provided directly to institutions to design and
implement institutional responses.

The phase two programme is now moving from the planning phase into action.
It offers new opportunities and additional resources for the leadership at
every institution to drive a stronger HIV and AIDS programme on our
campuses.

The programme will provide support to the Department of Education and HESA
to achieve the vision of a national education and training system which
contributes towards improving the quality of life and prosperity of all
citizens especially with respect to the HE sub-sector.

We all recognise and accept that HEIs have a duty to help protect both their
employees and their students from HIV infection and the most serious
consequences of infection. This is largely a question of building an
environment that enables people to make life choices to safeguard their health
by providing services that are accessible and of good quality and creating a
climate where respect for others is an absolute norm.

The remaining elements of the HE HIV and AIDS response focus on the world
beyond HE. They are as follows:

* what we teach our students about HIV and AIDS in order to prepare them for
a role in the wider world
* the kinds of research that we conduct in this field and how we share our
insights
* and the services that we provide to the general community through
partnerships and outreach programmes and the practical work required of our
professional students.

The Department of Education is convinced that the HE system can play an
important role in shaping attitudes and practices of future decision makers and
in so doing, further prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Historically, universities have been at the heart of agitation for social
justice. In our own country, university communities played a courageous role in
our fight for freedom, forming part of a tradition of academic and student
activism that stretches from Tiananmen Square in the east to the Californian
campus of Berkley in the west. There is something uniquely powerful about the
mixture of boldly progressive social theories, passionate academics and
idealistic young students. In this age of globalised materialism where
managerialism seems to have triumphed over leadership, we may well ask
ourselves, "Where have the brave social theorists and the hordes of idealistic
students gone?"

As with so many of our social and health problems, the HIV and AIDS pandemic
point us firmly back to one thing, 'the imperative of creating a more equal and
just society. Our universities' contribution to the national HIV and AIDS
response lies, in part, in their ability to provide powerful intellectual
leadership in the fight against poverty and inequality. As a society and as a
government, we would benefit from the sense of direction that can be provided
through the development of social theories that honestly confront the realities
of the 21st century.'

If there is one trend that distinguishes the second phase of HEAIDS from the
first, it is the new emphasis on working to address HIV and AIDS as a sector
rather than as a collection of loosely linked institutions. We have been made a
very substantial funding allocation of about R160 million (�20 million) by the
European Union (EU) and this guaranteed source of finance allows us to work at
a meaningful level on national interventions.

Your Excellency Ambassador Briet, I am sure you will agree that the
implementation of this programme has posed challenges to my Department, HESA
and the commission. Despite these challenges we continue to firmly commit
ourselves to a successful partnership between my Department and the European
Commission. In this regard my Department, HESA and the commission of this
programme has posed challenges; we are very thankful for the grant and we
intend to ensure that the full allocation is used as intended.

One of the first activities will be a national survey involving a sample of
25 000 staff and students to establish how prevalent HIV is on our campuses and
to understand the beliefs and behaviour of our students as they relate to HIV
and AIDS. So when the HEAIDS survey comes to your campus, we ask you to give it
your fullest support!

A second area of activity that will take shape soon, is the focus on
equipping our student teachers to deal more effectively with the challenges
they will face as they enter the classroom. We are looking to develop much more
detailed content on HIV and AIDS in the teaching curriculum and to spend time
on developing the skills that teachers need to respond to learners living with
the virus or affected by its impact on their families.

Our schools sector has developed progressive policy on HIV and AIDS, but
policy has probably got ahead of our human capacity to implement its provisions
at the interface with learners. So we are going to make sure that new teachers,
no matter which institution they have attended, will be empowered to bridge
this gap.

In this regard, I am pleased to announce that my Department is to make a
contribution by means of a once-off payment of R250 000 to each institution in
order to bolster the sector's commitment to the fight against the disease and
its impact.

The launch of HEAIDS programme will go a long way in making sure that we
make necessary and timeous interventions to address the problem before it
escalates to uncontrollable levels.

Chairperson and guests, if the President considers that William Butler Yeats
sometimes puts things better than he could I am not shy to concede the same
point. So, in closing, I want to remind you of Yeats's view of our life's work.
"Education is not the filling of a pail," he said "but the lighting of a fire."
It is our mission to light our academics and students' fires, their passion for
ideas, for life and the future.

Thank you!

Issued by: Department of Education
9 March 2007