Education, Schools & HIV/AIDS
Introduction

"Achieving Education for All in a world of AIDS presents an unprecedented challenge to the world education community.
HIV/AIDS makes [this goal] a much greater challenge in those countries where the education system was already struggling to grow, teachers are dying, or are too sick to teach. And every year more children are loosing their parents and the support that allowed them to go to school." The World Bank

"Education and HIV/AIDS. Two issues which have often fallen under different spheres of responsibility, yet they are so interlinked. There is a great untapped potential for the knowledge gained through so much talent and commitment in these two separate fields to be dovetailed...Ultimately, if an education system cannot keep its young people alive for ten years after the end of formal education, then it is most certainly failing its students."
Tania Boler, Education and HIV Advisor, ActionAid UK.

"Educators have been slow to pick up the challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It is only since 1999 that educators have realised the potentially devastating effects that the epidemic could have on both the formal and informal educational structures in Sub-Saharan Africa and around the world. Impact assessment and mitigation should be an integral part of educational planning and yet, planners are still reluctant to factor in the effects of the epidemic and attempt to “carry on as usual”. At the same time, education is seen as one of the most important weapons in the fight to abate the epidemic.

There is a growing need to share technical expertise between the fields of health and education (and broader afield) - areas of work usually treated as distinct spheres of responsibility. Moreover, to date, there have been few fora for sharing and building upon the research which has been undertaken on education and HIV/AIDS." (Excerpt from UK Working Group on HIV/AIDS & Education, Terms of Reference)

Please click on the links listed on the right hand side of this page for:
(1) information on the UK Working Group on Education & HIV/AIDS
(2) Seminars & Research papers
(3) Resource list