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HIV/Aids Takes Toll On Student Finance
Tamar Kahn
2004-06-25

Student deaths and illness due to HIV/AIDS have resulted in more than R8m in debts to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, says University of the Western Cape vicechancellor Prof Brian O' Connell.

Student deaths and illness due to HIV/AIDS have resulted in more than R8m in debts to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, says University of the Western Cape vicechancellor Prof Brian O' Connell.

His remarks came yesterday after a meeting of the South African Universities Vice-Chancellors Association to discuss the findings of SA's first audit of HIV/AIDS programmes at 35 tertiary institutions.

The debts put the spotlight on the devastating effect of HIV/AIDS on the student aid body, and raise difficult questions for the scheme on how to minimise its exposure to bad risk. Barbara Michel, programme director for the Higher Education HIV and AIDS Programme which conducted the audit, said the scheme could not discriminate against HIV-positive students.

The onus was therefore on universities to provide treatment, care and support for HIV-positive students so they could maintain good health long enough to pay back their loans, she said. Only the universities of Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Cape Town provided AIDS drugs, said Michel.

The programme was started in 2001 by the South African Universities Vice-Chancellors Association , the Committee of Technikon Principals and the education department to improve the management of HIV/AIDS in higher education institutions.

Its audit, released yesterday, revealed that universities have not acted to investigate the risk HIV/AIDS posed to their teaching and research abilities. When the survey was conducted last year, no institution had researched the potential costs of AIDS-related employee absence or death and only one had examined the effect of HIV on pension benefits.

More than half of the 35 institutions said they planned to conduct risk assessments this year. The audit's authors said all institutions were involved in HIV/AIDS programmes. There was a marked improvement since 2000, when many institutions did nothing.

Twenty-six institutions offered voluntary counselling and testing, and 30 provided free condoms. Michel said the European Union would provide R160m to tertiary institutions to boost their HIV/AIDS programmes. More than 5-million South Africans are HIV positive, and is most prevalent among people under the age of 25. (Source: Business Day, 22 June 2004)

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