The African Inland Church in Kenya is ready for the introduction of HIV/Aids lessons in all primary and secondary schools countrywide.

The church's HIV/Aids project co-ordinator, Mrs Catherine Anyona, says the necessary learning materials are ready.

Mrs Anyona said it was the wish of the AIC in Kenya to see the youth effectively enlightened on the dangers of HIV/Aids through the introduction of the necessary curriculum in all schools, including those sponsored by other denominations.

Mrs Anyona was addressing participants of a five-day workshop under the theme "Why Wait?'' at the Murang'a Teacher Training College.

The workshop, which brought together primary and secondary school teachers, was officially closed by Deputy Director of Education Johnstone Kavuludi. It was facilitated by AIC followers from Malawi, led by Mr Jim Albright.

"We have the necessary learning materials ready for the teaching of HIV/Aids in our schools. All we want is for the Ministry of Education to liaise with us so that we can enlighten the youth on the dangers of this killer disease which is claiming 500 lives daily," Mrs Anyona said.

The teaching aids, she said, include video cassettes, plays, card games, textbooks and class work books for teachers and students.

Mrs Anyona said the teaching of the HIV/Aids concept was first mooted in 1994 in the US and was later successfully introduced in Malawi. If Kenya adopts the programme, it will be the second country in Africa to do so.

Mr Albright spoke of the programme's success in Malawi.

Education Director Sammy Kyungu, in a speech read by Mr Kavuludi, said the government welcomed the move by the AIC as "it endeavours to save the Kenyan youth from the Aids scourge".

Mr Kyungu said that the training of teachers on HIV/Aids "equipped them with the right ammunition for the eradication of the disease".

The chairman of the Kenya Christian Students Fellowship, Dr Paul Mbugua, supported the proposal by the AIC. "Introduction of classes on HIV/Aids in our learning institutions will save many of the country's youth by encouraging them to avoid careless sexual behaviour," he said.

Kenya's AIC education department director, Mr John Chaplain, said the number of deaths caused by the 1998 bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi were nowhere comparable to those caused by Aids.

"People appear not to get scared by Aids which kills about 500 Kenyans daily, yet when there was a bomb blast in Nairobi which killed about 250, we were very scared about it. Which, means that on a daily basis, two similar bombs explode in Kenya.

He said that the WHY WAIT concept can achieve favourable results if properly impacted to the youth particularly during social ethics classes and clubs within schools.

The idea will greatly complement other activities that take place during normal class work but, the main problem from an observer point of view is that will school children cope with a new work load on top of the too cumbersome 8-4-4 system of education.

In an apparent reaction to that observation, Mr Kyugu, in his speech said, ''the role of a good school should be to provide total quality education to the learners so that they can come out of an education system well adjusted for survival.''

He consented that, ''the collective responsibility that used to be operational in traditional African communities has been dying at the expense of our youth.''

Therefore, he suggested, the biggest responsibility then, lies squarely on our teachers hence the necessity for the WHY WAIT seminar which he noted will offer the youth with new skills for their future.

Strangely enough, Mr Kyugu said due to lack of correct and adequate information on sexuality, many Kenyan youths engage themselves in irresponsible sexual behaviours at a very tender age.

In his argument he said that studies which were conducted recently in the country, indicated that four percent of ten year old youths had engaged themselves in sexual intercourse.

Further he said, 67 per cent girls aged between 15-19 and 77 per cent boys within the same age bracket reported having had sex, and sad enough, sexuality active primary school girls reported more partners than their secondary and vocational training institute colleagues.

At the time of the survey he noted, it was discovered that nearly half of the then sexually active boys, had more than one sexual partner.