The Response of Information Technology to the Challenge of HIVAIDS in Higher Education Institutions

1
The Response of Information Technology to the
Challenge of HIV/AIDS in Higher Education
Institutions in Africa

• Presentation to
• Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on
• Reforms in Higher Education and the Use of
  Information Technology in Africa
• Nairobi, 1921 November 2001
• M. J. Kelly, University of Zambia, Lusaka

2
The Disproportionate Effect of HIV/AIDS on
Sub-Saharan Africa

• SSA has one-tenth of the worlds population
• SSA has two-and-a-half times more HIV/AIDS
  infected persons than the rest of the world
• SSAs adult infection rate is 25 times greater
  than in the rest of the world
• 4 out of every 5 AIDS deaths occur in SSA
• SSA faces the challenge of responding to the
  needs of 90 of the worlds AIDS orphans

3
HIV/AIDS Estimates for Sub-Saharan Africa
compared with the Rest of the World
4
The Scope of HIV/AIDS

• Not a disease of Africa
• Alarming estimates for India, China, Russia
• Not a disease of poor countries
• Number of infected in USA exceed number of
  infected in Zambia
• Worst affected countries in SSA are also the most
  wealthy
• Not a disease of poor people
• BUT, factors which characterize poor societies
  poor individuals contribute to higher rates of
  HIV/AIDS morbidity mortality
• Strategies against HIV/AIDS must encompass
  strategies against poverty, vice versa

5
University Responses to HIV/AIDS (1)

• Absence of good information (even on deaths)
• Considerable silence at institutional, academic
  personal levels
• In practical terms, much denial and secrecy
• Fear of openness anxiety about stigmatisation
  some discrimination
• Piecemeal uncoordinated responses
• The absence of strong institutional response
  frequently compensated for by many generous
  individual initiatives

6
University Responses to HIV/AIDS (2)

• Regarded principally as a student problem
• Most students are aware of the issue but have
  attitudes of denial, fatalism, invulnerability
• Institutions treat of the HIV/AIDS issue very
  briefly in orientation programmes
• University social life frequently creates
  high-risk situations for students
• Few if any workplace education programmes exist
  for academic or non-academic staff
• HIV/AIDS is treated mostly as a health issue

7
Framework for the Response of Higher Education
Institutions

• AIDS-affected higher education institutions have
  two major HIV/AIDS responsibilities
• 1. They must protect their continued
  functioning as effective and efficient
  institutions
• 2. They must respond dynamically to the needs of
  an AIDS-affected society

8
Components of the Response of Higher Education
Institutions

• Institutional self-protection requires
• development of appropriate policy and management
  structures
• care and support for staff and students
• Responsiveness to the needs of society requires
• production of AIDS-competent graduates in the
  numbers and disciplines required
• dynamic multi-disciplinary collaborative research
• engagement with society and collaborative service
  of its needs

9
Information Technologys Potential and Modalities
for Supporting the Response of Higher Education
Institutions to HIV/AIDS

• E-mail websites CD-ROM
• information provision, databases, documentation
  and library access
• list-serves online discussions
• web-based discussion groups, workshops symposia
• networking
• information sources, question and answer sites
  (e-mail or web) and chat rooms for personal
  support/information
• online publications
• distance education
• involvement with community organizations

10
How IT has been Used in Other Settings to Respond
to HIV/AIDS

• A Chinese PLA established a website to help
  others
• AIDS Education Global Information System
  (dedicated and comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge
  base accessible via the web or e-mail)
• Distribution of wind-up radios to facilitate
  access of rural people to HIV/AIDS information
• A CD brings 5,000 pages of the latest, in-depth
  HIV/AIDS information to practitioners with poor
  internet services
• Online HIV/AIDS learning module for secondary
  schools
• A total wire-less off-the-grid system brings
  HIV/AIDS messages to areas without electric power
  or telephone lines
• Online collaborative project for secondary
  schools on HIV/AIDS (in 42 schools in Africa)

11
Use of IT by Higher Education in Internal
Response to HIV/AIDS

• Management Policy Development
• evidence of posting of policies on websites
• potential need for networking, online
  discussions, list-serves, interactive workshops
• Staff Student Welfare
• aim is to facilitate coping, management, control
• evidence of interactive question-and-answer
  e-mail facility, online support group (being
  developed), interactive HIV/AIDS programmes
  accessible at all times on student computers
• need for chat-lines, roundtable pages, personal
  stories pages, more information provision, more Q
  A facilities, list-serves, discussion groups
  both within and between institutions

12
Use of IT by Higher Education in Teaching
Response to HIV/AIDS

• No known use, other than some information
  provision and general list-serve discussions
• Current teaching responses are piecemeal,
  individual, uncoordinated (within across
  institutions)
• Tendency is to focus on teaching interventions
  from the perspective of protecting students
  against infection or its impacts
• No clear vision exists of the implications of
  HIV/AIDS for every profession, for new expertise,
  for student numbers
• There is urgent need for the networking of
  specialists according to professional discipline,
  for interactive workshops, teleconferencing, and
  greater availability of materials related to the
  way HIV/AIDS must be taken into account in
  education/training for each profession

13
IT and the Research Response of Higher Education
to HIV/AIDS

• Extensive use of e-mail websites for
  information access, information-sharing and
  discussion, but could be extended
• Some IT-based inter-institutional interaction
• Some IT-facilitated sharing of library resources
• Needs are for
• more cooperation less silo-confined
  HIV/AIDS research (within between
  institutions), more research across disciplines,
  research in fields other than biomedical, social
  health sciences
• more extended networking in dedicated areas
• data-bases on expertise within Africa and on
  HIV/AIDS research undertakings (and more use of
  this local research competence)
• development of online publications for
  dissemination of research findings

14
IT and the HIV/AIDS Engagement of Higher
Education with Society

• Higher education institutions should not be ivory
  towers, but listening, caring, responding,
  collaborating communities, especially in context
  of HIV/AIDS
• A key mandate is to search jointly with
  communities for solution to problems
• World Links HIV/AIDS IT Project for Africa
  (from World Bank Institute) encourages schools to
  establish linkages with HIV/AIDS NGOs whereby
• schools help NGOs to enhance their HIV/AIDS work
  by becoming IT literate
• NGOs train students to be peer educators and
  home-based care providers

15
The University of Natal Centre for AIDS
Networking (HIVAN)

• Key Components
• A globally accessible database, linked with a
  website, of information, resources and networking
  tools
• Virtual and face-to-face forums (workshops, chat
  rooms, symposia, etc.) that encourage the
  development of networks involving local
  international researchers, practitioners
  policy-makers
• Multidisciplinary action research, intervention,
  and training programmes
• A Campus HIV/AIDS Support Unit
• Multidisciplinary graduate training around
  HIV/AIDS
• A coalition of African Higher Education
  institutions that interacts regularly around
  issues of HIV/AIDS

16
Using IT for Distance Education in Response to
HIV/AIDS

• Mobility being away from climate of norms
  expectations relative affluence situation
  that may lead to HIV risk behaviour
• All operative for many full-time higher education
  students
• Forms of distance education can reduce or
  eliminate the mobility and away-from-home risk
  factors
• IT offers considerable potential for effective
  distance education and thereby can contribute to
  reducing risk of HIV infection
• IT programmes can also communicate
  HIV/AIDS-related content, prevention, and
  management messages
• Delivery by e-mail, websites, interactive
  programmes, .

17
Prerequisites for Use by Higher Education of ITs
Potential against HIV/AIDS

• Committed leadership by senior institutional
  executives, middle academic management, academic
  governance bodies
• Resources in the form of
• basic essential equipment in sufficient quantity
  to cater for large numbers
• connectivity to surmount costly unreliable
  internet access
• training for those developing programmes
• access to already existing HIV/AIDS educational
  programmes, resources, research

18
Acknowledgements

• Grateful thanks go to
• Ann N. Parsons, University of Cape Town Sean
  Jones, University of Natal Shivani Khanna, Equal
  Access Anthony Bloome, World Links Svava
  Bjarnason, Association of Commonwealth
  Universities Don Bundy, Karen Lashman, Yoshiko
  Koda, Kelly D. Grable, and Shobhana Sosale, all
  of the World Bank
• for insightful bytes of information and
  assistance that contributed to this paper