Contents: Introduction, What is AIDS?, Let s Unite in Our Efforts to Fight AIDS, Love your Life, Fight AIDS, Love Your Life, Don t Even Consider Getting AIDS, If There is Life, There is Hope, Have Empathy Towards Other, Knowing Our Bodies, A Closely-knit Family can Easily Fight AIDS, NIT-NOI Goes to the Doctor, Meet in the Middle, We Don t Want to Contract AIDS, AIDS is Preventable, AIDS is a Danger to Life and Society, Protect Yourself from AIDS, Leading a Good Life that is Free from AIDS, Happy Family, Free from AIDS, Healthy Practices can Prevent AIDS, Reason and its Application will Save your from AIDS, Self-control can Prevent One from Contracting AIDs, Leading an Ethical Life Helps Prevent AIDS.

HIV/AIDS has been named the Sub Saharan disease. In countries that have achieved significant declines in HIV prevalence, young people have registered the biggest behavioural changes. It means they hold the keys not only to our understanding of the epidemic, but more importantly, to the efforts required to stem the tide of infections. However, the majority of young people are ignorant of how to prevent transmission, have low compliance to condom use, which is in some cases accentuated by misconceptions about HIV/AIDS transmission and have insufficient knowledge regarding transmission and avoidance behaviours. As such, consensus on feasible preventive interventions target young people, particularly those in schools. It is on this premise that the book unlocks the key pillars in effective HIV/AIDS education policies and practices.The study has drawn upon the experiences of selected Urban Schools in Malawi to explore the needs of young people in classroom, the extent to which the classroom practices respond to the needs, and the factors influencing these using questionnaires, interviews, lesson observations, and document analysis. Malawi typically represents most Sub Saharan African countries in terms of challenges faced by education systems. Given the similar cultural settings of the people of Sub Saharan Africa, the findings and recommendations of the study generalises to the education systems of Sub Saharan Africa to a greater extent. The book shows the need for open discussion climates on HIV/AIDS issues despite a conservative cultural and religious adult world that is not open. It has also identified a need for explicit and accurate knowledge on HIV/AIDS issues, opportunities to acquire behavioural skills for HIV prevention, and involvement of external speakers in classroom HIV/AIDS education.Current classroom practice does not address the pupils‘ needs adequately. Factors influencing this can be linked to lack of policies responsive to culture and religion, ineffective and inadequate teaching policy guidelines, and lack of a policy prioritising HIV/AIDS education. The findings suggest that in future, effective HIV/AIDS Education needs to be informed by the pupils’ needs. To address these needs, support from the wider society and related policies, coupled with appropriate management and classroom practice will be required. The book is therefore an indispensable tool for education systems in Sub Saharan Africa. It provides an effective model for [...]

Primary schoolchildren are frequently shielded from education on sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases in an effort to protect their innocence. In countries like South Africa, where AIDS is particularly widespread, it is especially important to address prevention with younger boys and girls as active social agents with the capacity to engage with AIDS as gendered and sexual beings. This volume addresses the question of children’s understanding of AIDS, not simply in terms of their dependence but as active participants in the interpretation of their social worlds. The volume draws on an interview and ethnographic based study of young children in two socially diverse South African primary schools, as well as interviews conducted with teachers and mothers of young children. It shows how adults sustain the production of childhood sexual innocence, and the importance of scaling up programs in AIDS intervention, gender and sexuality. It makes significant contributions to the global debate around childhood sexualities, gender and AIDS education.

The education sector plays a key external role in preventing and reducing the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. It also plays an important internal role in providing access to care, treatment, and support for teachers and education staff, a group that in many countries represents more than 60 percent of the public sector workforce. The education sector can also have a critically important positive effect on the future: Even in the worst-affected countries, most schoolchildren are not infected. For these children, there is a chance to live lives free from AIDS if they can be educated on the knowledge and values that can protect them as they grow up. The authors of 'Accelerating the Education Sector Response to HIV' explore the experiences of education sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa as they scale up their responses to HIV/AIDS within the Accelerate Initiative Working Group, established in 2002 by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Inter-Agency Task Team on Education. This book demonstrates that leadership by the ministries of education and commitment from key development partners are crucial for mobilizing activities and that full participation of all stakeholders is required for effective implementation. This book summarizes the experiences of technical Focal Points from the 37 ministries of education in Sub-Saharan Africa, which are represented on the sub-regional networks for HIV and Education. These experiences prove that the education sector response can play a crucially important role in the multisectoral national responses to this epidemic.