An assessment of the Impact of partnership in educational provision to vulnerable HIV/AIDS-affected children in Chongwe District
Date
2011-04-29
Authors
Daka, Harrison Sainan
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Abstract
This study highlights the impact of partnership in educational provision to
vulnerable HIV/AIDS - affected children in Zambia. It was conducted in
Chongwe District in Lusaka Province. Chongwe Distrie\has four chiefdoms and
is occupied by soli speaking people. Part of chief Nkomesha's area was used as
the study site. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used for data collection. The researcher used a questionnaire, Focus Group Discussions and
interviews as data cellection instruments. The District Commissioner, District
Education Board Secretary, Education Officers, Health workers, community
leaders, World Vision area Manager and the Communities participated in the
questionnaire, Focus Group Discussion sand /or interview exercises. The
questionnaire and Focus Group Discussion document had close and open-ended
questions while interviews were unstructured. The respondents were therefore
free to express their views.
The findings of the study revealed that partnership in educational provision to
vulnerable HIV/AIDS-affected children had a positive impact. The partners
contributed to nutrition, health care, shelter and clothing ofthe vulnerable
children, motivating them to continue with education. The guardians and Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) cited lack of
provision of life-skills and psycho-social care .Bad morals like beer drinking by
boys and early involvements in sexual relations by girls were things that
contributed to school dropout.
Poor implementation of government policy was also found to be affecting
vulnerable children's access to education. This was evidenced by unfulfilled
promises, e.g. vulnerable children were not a priority in as far as the distribution
of education materials and enrolments are concerned, even if written policy stated
so. There was also government's failure to distribute educational materials to
basic schools. The study ended up recommending that the government should improve the funding to basic schools as a solution to the main problem of charging pupils through Parent Teacher Associations (P.T.A.). The ..study discovered that
providing life- skills training to vulnerable children would best address the
problem of continual dependence on Non Governmental Organisations (NGO). In
addition to this, households headed by grandparents, children and chronically ill
guardians should be empowered with livestock restocking for selfsustainance. It
was also recommended that NGOs should concentrate on rural areas where no
other NGO operated from.
Description
Keywords
Education -- Zambia , HIV/AIDS -- Zambia , Partnership---Education