HIV/AIDS
and Education:
Smashing Taboos to Save Lives |
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| Families
composed of only grandparents and grandchildren; households
run by adolescents; dying parents nursed by their children.
As well as devastating entire economies, HIV/AIDS is transforming
the structure of both families and education systems in Africa,
where a staggering 11,000 people contract the virus daily. It
is also wiping out social and economic gains that Africa has
worked towards for decades. |
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Asia also presents the potential for a full-blown crisis – if
not on the same scale – unless urgent action is taken. Eastern
Europe has seen an alarming rise in AIDS related to drug abuse.
No region can afford to ignore the threat the HIV/AIDS virus
represents and its implication for education systems. |
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| The
AIDS problem has become so critical that the United Nations
Security Council addressed it in January 2000 – the first time
in its history that it has ever treated a pandemic as a global
security crisis. |
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| In
certain African communities 30 per cent of the teachers have
died. In Zambia 1,300 died in 1998 alone. A study carried out
in Côte d’Ivoire revealed that 140 teachers died of AIDS and
519 were HIV positive in the 1996/97 school year. Estimating
that the schooling of almost 38,000 primary school pupils would
suffer, the study said that if the rate of infection stayed
the same, at least 71,000 children would have poor-quality schooling
in the year 2000. |
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| Apart
from the devastating psychological effect of illness and death
among teachers and pupils, the long-term structural effects
of AIDS on education systems are dire. “As AIDS continues to
take its toll, there will be schools with no head teachers and
inspectors,” a recent UNICEF study points out. “This has a negative
impact on the education system’s ability to plan, manage and
implement policies and programmes.” |
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Half of all the new cases of sexually transmitted diseases,
including HIV, occur in young people between 15 and 24 years
of age. “We learn to be responsible about sex only by being
taught,” says 16-year-old Bradley Mauff of Western Samoa.
“A child who knows nothing of the consequences of unprotected
sex is most at risk.” Bradley and 500 other young people speak
out on sexual and reproductive health in a recent booklet
from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). All of them
demand accurate information on sex, HIV/AIDS, family planning,
marriage and child care. They bring home the lesson that quality
education should not only meet learning needs, it should advance
human rights, including reproductive rights.
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| “The
time is now to put the HIV/AIDS crisis at the centre of our
national education agendas, “ insists educationist M. J. Kelly
of the University of Zambia in a recent analysis of HIV/AIDS
in education. “School in an AIDS-infected world cannot be the
same as school in an AIDS-free world.” |
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| “Though
AIDS may be wiping out large numbers, in certain societies people
are still reluctant to address sexuality,” explains Sonia Bahri
of UNESCO. “Cultural attitudes often discourage open discussion
on prevention, so countries are slow to teach it in schools.”
Traditions, beliefs and value systems thus need to be taken
into account in the design of HIV/AIDS preventive programmes,
as much as the medical aspects. “In too many instances, parents
are uncomfortable discussing these issues, peers are uninformed
and schools are hesitant to encourage dialogue. Yet rates of
sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy and are
highest at young ages,” says Dr Nafis Sadik, Executive Director
of UNFPA. “Young people are denied the information and services
that they need in order to make responsible decisions about
sex and reproduction.” |
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Some countries are actively overcoming the taboo. Senegal
has worked hard to prevent a major HIV epidemic and has maintained
one of the lowest rates of infection in sub-Saharan Africa.
Reproductive health and sexuality are now part of school curricula.
When HIV prevalence in Uganda reached nearly 10 per cent of
adults, the government instituted urgent national measures to
raise awareness, support behavioural change and address the
needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. HIV prevalence has now
dropped substantially among young people. |
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"The first battle to be won in the war against AIDS is
the battle to smash the wall of silence and stigma surrounding
it".
Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations. |
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In other parts of the world preventive projects are mushrooming.
Since 1993, Sri Lanka has included “population and family life
education” in the school curriculum. Cambodia has translated
preventive educational material into Khmer and intensively trained
teachers on a national level. In Thailand, the Daughters of
Education project provides funding for girls who would otherwise
be sold into the sex trade so that they remain in school. stigma
surrounding itÓ. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United
Nations. |
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In Latin America, Brazil has embarked on an ambitious
US$50 million national prevention programme targeting young
people both in and out of school, especially those difficult
to reach, from prostitutes to prisoners. Honduras, Mexico and
the Dominican Republic are all running teacher training workshops
within the UNAIDS framework. |
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Thanks to effective information campaigns, industrialized
countries show a high level of awareness of the risks attached
to HIV/AIDS. However, immigrant populations and ethnic minorities,
who contract the virus at higher rates, are still vulnerable.
Preventive education continues with some success. In western
Europe, 60 per cent of young people now use condoms the first
time they have sex – a six-fold increase since the early 1990s.
This is a good illustration of how responsibly young people
behave when they are properly informed. Any hope of bringing
the pandemic under control resides with them. |
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AIDS is theoretically a treatable disease now, thanks
to multiple-drug therapy. But at US$20,000 a head per year,
only the world’s richest countries can afford this treatment,
despite solidarity campaigns such as the UNAIDS/French Government
initiative to give developing countries access to the latest
treatment. Until such actions become generalized, in the words
of Raphael N’Diaye of the ENDA Tiers Monde organization, “the
only effective vaccine against AIDS is education.” |
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