Confronting the Impact of HIV and AIDS: The Consequences of the Pandemics for Education Supply,Demand and Quality. A Global Review from a Southern African Perspective

Abstract

The global spread of the HIV and AIDS pandemics will, for the next three generations at least, underline education access, quality and provision. Reforms within the sector will necessarily take account of the implications of this plague within national, provincial and local contexts. This article is based on several assumptions. The first is that HIV/AIDS is not only a medical problem: the spread of the disease has created a pandemic with social, economic, geopolitical and other consequences for all countries. Second, increasing numbers of countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, are now facing one of the great crises of human history. The third is that other countries in Eastern Europe and the Asia and Pacific regions will confront similar challenges as the pandemic spreads. The article focuses specifically on the relationship between HIV/AIDS and education in countries with different levels of HIV/AIDS prevalence. It concentrates on the impact of the disease on education at schools level, with some attention to teacher education. It outlines our current understanding of the pandemic, analyses current and anticipated impact of HIV/AIDS on education in order to clarify probable changes in demand for and supply of education services, and looks at education's current responses to HIV/AIDS, principally in high prevalence countries.