Benoni 1 October 1999
Deputy President Zuma
Minister Tshabala-Msimang, Minister of Health
Today I have the opportunity to talk about something that is very close indeed to my heart, an issue that my Department has set as the priority of all priorities. I have dealt with priorities before. When I was Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, I com mitted my Department to making a basic commodity such as water accessible to our people. As Minister of Education, I talk no less passionately about water and sanitation, but for schools.
In the Call to Action which was released on 27 July 1999 to mobilise all South Africans to meet the educational challenges of the 21" Century, we set nine priorities, including the eradication of the scourge of illiteracy and the placing of schools where t hey belong, at the centre of community life.
The Call to Action also echoed the President's words that teachers must teach, students must learn and managers must manage.
Deputy President Zuma, that Call to Action also underscored the fact that the priority that underlies all priorities is the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We, as a nation, as institutions and as individuals must deal with this menace with urgency and purpose, for if w e fail we face a future full of suffering and loss, of untold consequences for our families, communities and our institutions.
Vice-chancellors, what I am saying is that you may not have any students to teach, unless we get to grips with this problem. This requires a call for all citizens to battle stations - the mobilisation of our communities and our institutions to fight, not j ust in word, but in tangible deeds to ensure that we do in fact have a future.
In contrast to the Black Death, the plague that swept Europe in the Middle Ages and generally killed the weak of society, the elderly and the infirm, AIDS strikes at those who are virile, active and strong. It therefore strikes at the very heart of the nat ion, notably the workforce. The threat is therefore of a nature and scale that has never been seen before.
In recognition of the magnitude of this problem, government has set up an inter- ministerial committee on HIV/AIDS chaired by our Deputy President, to co-ordinate the Government's response to our most crushing challenge facing us as we enter the 21 st cent ury.
During a listening campaign I conducted soon after being appointed Minister of Education, I met, among many other interests, with vice-chancellors and other members of the higher education community. Many informed me about the potential impact of HIV/AIDS on the higher education system. I am disappointed that, as far as I can see, so few vice-chancellors (Chief Executives) are with us this morning. I am certainly not detracting from the presence of other senior members of staff present, but we all know that we cannot afford to treat our response to this epidemic as an administrative function that is lightly delegated.
In our country, HIV/AIDS is predominantly a heterosexual disease, hence I specifically asked that the two student representatives to this gathering should be a man and a woman. I specifically mention students, because it is the youth who are bearing the br unt of this epidemic, and of course the youth are our future.
I was informed that not all higher education institutions have policies on HIV/AIDS. I am not sure if I should be disappointed or shocked. What is interesting is that the Techn'ikons appear to have made greater headway in this regard. Without appearing to favour any particular institution, it is important to acknowledge Technikon SA, WITS Technikon,' ML Sultan Technikon, Peninsula Technikon, Free State Technikon (pity they are not here) and Mangosuthu Technikon for the development of comprehensive policy do cuments. I am aware that other institutions have taken a different route, while others are only starting with policy formulation.
We also know that policy does not solve all our problems. The translation of policy into practicalities is the real challenge, otherwise the policy is a worthless piece of paper that is only dusted off and produced when the Minister asks what is being done . I have been told that the main discussion points over the next two days are:
The impact of HIV/AIDS on Higher Education Institutions; and the institutional responses to the epidemic
We need to be brutally frank and honest in our discussions. There is no question that we have an epidemic, but we also need to guard against over simplification or over blowing-up of the problem. Last year, under huge headlines, the media pronounced that s ome 70% of the students at a higher education institution were HIV positive. The reality is that, out of a sample of 385 students, 88 were found to be HIV positive. I may not be statistician, but I know that this does not translate to 70%, but rather close r to 23%. While this may sound better, it is still a staggering number. To make matters worse, the Department of Health say that the prevalence of the disease in KwaZulu-Natal is close to 32%. That is one out of every three people infected. If this does no t shock you, I don't know what will.
What I would like to do is challenge the higher education sector over the next two days and beyond in coming up with concrete and substantive mechanisms to deal with this pandemic. We are beyond the awareness point, but we should be concentrating on increa sing institutional and personal consciousness in order to change behaviour. It is a matter of changing a whole culture.
The Ministry of Education will be delivering HIV/AIDS booklets to each school as soon as possible in the new year to help the staff and students dealing with the everyday problems that this disease brings. Teachers should know what to do if students cut th emselves when there are no latex gloves in the school. The absence of gloves does not mean that the teacher cannot use one of the many plastic bags that we find littering our countryside.
As higher education institutions, you should be asking yourselves some of the following questions:
If the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is 32% in some parts of the country, what is this going to do to student enrolments, especially in light of the current decline in enrolments in some parts of the system?
When your institution draws up its yearly budget, do you factor in the cost of dealing with the epidemic on campus?
Are students' representative councils playing their full part in combating this crisis, or are we only concerned about organising the next student ball, which I was appalled to hear can cost hundreds of thousands of rands.
Are you, higher education institutions, an intimate part of the community and are you making your institutions part of community life in dealing with what is in essence everyone's problem?
Lastly, as you contemplate designing posters with messages full of words, remember that millions of our people, including young people, are illiterate or read and write in such a rudimentary manner as not to get the message.
Let us mobilise the nation around this massively important priority, and I fervently hope that this conference marks a milestone on that road.
With those few words, I declare this conference open, as we eagerly await the keynote address by the Deputy President of South Africa, Mr Jacob Zuma, and the critically important discussions that will follow.