South African Education Minister Refutes AIDS Report on Teachers
South Africa's Education Minister Kader Asmal Sunday "refuted" a report warning that AIDS would become the leading cause of death among South African teachers in 2001, Xinhua reports. Addressing the issue on the South African Broadcasting Corporation's "Newsmaker" program, Asmal argued that researchers failed to use "proper empirical evidence" in the study. "Most important of all, there is no basis for the conclusions they come to ... as to how many teachers will get AIDS," he said, dismissing the findings as "estimates [and] forecasts" based on a sampling of pregnant women (Xinhua, 1/14). The Johannesburg Star reported last week that 20% of teachers in KwaZulu-Natal, 16% in other provinces and between 7% and 8% of principals and department heads had contracted HIV, but Asmal spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said that researchers tested no teachers or students in the study. In addition, he called "speculat[ion]" that a percentage of teachers had contracted HIV "misleading," adding that the South African Department of Health -- not the
education department -- commissioned the study, conducted by international consulting firm Abt Associates Inc. "We are currently assessing the validity of the findings as well as the methodology used in the research," he said (South African Press Association, 1/14).
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