HIV and EDUCATION
In recent years, the education sector has come to play an increasingly important role in preventing HIV. Children of school-age have the lowest HIV infection rates of any population sector. Even in the worst affected countries, the vast majority of schoolchildren are not infected. For these children, there is a window of hope, a chance to live a life free from AIDS, if they can acquire knowledge, skills, and values that will help protect them as they grow up. Providing young people, especially girls, with the ‘social vaccine’ of education offers them a real chance at a productive life (see Education and HIV&AIDS: A Window of Hope, World Bank 2002).
Not only is education important for preventing HIV; preventing HIV is also essential for education. The impact of the epidemic means some countries are beginning to experience a reversal of hard-won educational gains; affecting supply, demand, and quality of education, HIV and AIDS limits the capacity of education sectors to achieve Education for All (EFA), and of countries to achieve their targets towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The Education Sector plays a key ‘external’ role in prevention and in reducing stigma, and an important ‘internal’ role in providing access to care, treatment and support for teachers and staff, a group that in many countries represents more than 60 per cent of the public sector workforce.
For more information on HIV, search for Country Programmes on HIV Prevention Education, articles in the HIV Bibliography and HIV Document Downloads or go to the following pages:
Ministry of Education HIV&AIDS Networks
Accelerating the Education Sector response to HIV
Education and HIV/AIDS: A Window of Hope
Window of Hope: Award-winning documentary about HIV in Africa (30 minutes)
The Sourcebook of HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes is available in English, French and Portuguese