§ Lord Juddasked Her Majesty's Government:
What discussions they have had with the government of Zambia on how to make good the fall in the number of teachers in Zambia following the recent evidence that more teachers there are dying of AIDS than there are students completing teacher training. [HL2969]
§ Baroness AmosIf the 1998 reporting (1,331 teacher deaths) is fairly accurate, and given the overall HIV infection trends in the adult population, Zambia will lose to AIDS annually about 2.8 per cent of its teaching force between 2000 and 2010.
To this should be added morbidity, based on approximate loss of 6 months of labour prior to full-blown AIDS, and 12 months' loss prior to death, giving a figure of 4.2 per cent loss of available teacher labour to 2010—i.e. 1,996 teacher equivalents per annum.
This has to be compared to national output of trained primary teachers of 2,226 per annum at present. The estimates in 1 and 2 are likely to be under-estimates, therefore the supply-demand is almost balanced at present.