HIV as Part of the Lives of Children and Youth as Life Expectancy Increases : Implications for Education

The education sector is crucial to any national response to the world epidemic of HIV and AIDS. The school age years, about 5 to 15 years, make up the cross section of any population with the lowest prevalence of HIV infection. This is the “Window of Hope", and education is the social vaccine against HIV infection. Now, with effective anti-viral treatment increasingly available, the number of infected children of school age is rising through increased survival. Schools must adapt to having more such children in class. Furthermore, there will be many infected and affected children, orphans and vulnerable children, who will not access formal education, or not fully, and the path to education must be made easier for them. We are able to predict a rise and then a fall of the school age numbers, but new preparations must be made for these young people to adapt to their adult lives, living with HIV. All such school and educational responses must take the developmental stages of children and their emotional needs into account.