Recommendation targets HIV-positive teachers

Uganda's Education Service Commission has proposed that teachers living with HIV/AIDS be dismissed, local newspaper The Monitor reported on Monday. An estimated 30 percent of the country's 122,000 teachers are living with HIV/AIDS, and some 36,000 could go jobless if the recommendation is implemented. Addressing a recent conference on the impact of HIV/AIDS on education in Africa, the local Commissioner for Secondary Education, Yusuf Nsubuga, said only teachers who had taken sick leave for six months or more would be affected. The recommendation has, however, drawn mixed reactions from teachers and AIDS activists. Ruranga Rubaramira, chairman of the National Guidance and Empowerment Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS, said, "The ministry should introduce a good workplace system that would instead allow treatment for all teachers living with HIV/AIDS."