Table of Contents
The HIV pandemic is acknowledged all over the world to be the most serious health crisis in the century. HIV continues to escalate at worrying rates throughout the world, and successful efforts to contain it have been minimal. This is correct despite advances of remarkable nature in our comprehension of the virus’s molecular biology and its effects on the body; advances that have resulted to therapeutic findings in the second decade of the pandemic (Perry, 2008).
For people capable to receive treatment with antiretroviral drugs, infections of HIV have been transformed from a fatal disease to a terminal illness. This has resulted to a dramatic downturn in mortality and morbidity from the disease throughout the world in the last decade.
Despite these developments on the biomedical front, however, the pandemic continues to escalate and treatment remains scarce to overwhelming majority of masses requiring it. According to World Bank (2000), statistics reveal that, of the six million individuals currently requiring treatment in the development world, 8% only are accessing it; this figure reduces to 2% in Africa where majority of these individuals live.
These alarming statistics have made majority of international observers to declare AIDS pandemic the leading menace to growth of Africa. The most afflicted countries already experience significant reversals in their growth indicators. Despite HIV and AIDS are commonly known to be a medical and physical health condition, today there is no doubt that HIV and AID influence a series of social areas, and education is not an exception.
Studies of education systems in African countries that are the most affected by HIV/AIDS have already demonstrated that there is certain correlation between the level of HIV/AIDS prevalence and children’s academic performance (UNAIDS, 1999; UNICEF, 2002). Education is the future of each country, that is why the influence of HIV/AIDS prevalence on the educational system is an important issue to study. Despite a series of questions have been already answered, there are still many issues to work on.
Like every other sector of the social and economic life of countries affected by HIV/AIDS, education has also been impacted hard by the pandemic. Rising numbers of states in Sub-Saharan Africa have faced teacher shortages as the pool of qualified teachers is shrinking. The epidemic has not spared education sector administrators, planning and financial officials (UNAIDS, 1999).
HIV and AIDS have impacted the sectors of education in developing countries in a number of ways: the disease has reduced the number of skilled teachers; has affected student enrollment levels in schools; and has worsened educational quality in the affected countries. Teacher absenteeism due to HIV infections also affects the quality of education provision in affected regions (UNICEF, 2002). Teachers also tend to relocate away from HIV and AIDS prevalent areas (UNAIDS, 1999).
1 hour!
The minimum time our certified writers need to delivera 100% original paper
According to UNICEF (2002), the death of children or parents directly affects school enrolment levels. This happens as a result of children dropping out due to lack of financial means to sustain their education, or they drop out to care for their siblings or sick parents. There is also possible reduction in education quality due to absentia of teachers from school (UNAIDS, 1999). They may also not offer similar quality of schooling they used to provide before they became sick (UNICEF, 2002).
Studies have been performed to find and project the effects of HIV and AIDS on the education sector in developing countries. According to the UNICEF report of 2002, developing countries face inadequacies of teaching personnel. A study conducted by UNICEF in Zambia for instance indicated that only 56,000 primary school children out of 1.7 million would have lost a teacher in 1999 to AIDS (UNICEF, 2002).
The study also revealed that the rate of teacher mortality in 1998 was equal to the loss of two thirds of the annual output of newly trained teachers (UNICEF, 2002). The demand of quality education is also being affected by HIV/AIDS. For instance, analysis of 49 case studies of families infected with AIDS throughout Zambia discovered that 56 out of 25 children had been forced to drop out of school (UNICEF, 2002).
Considering the data provided below, it is possible to assume that the indicators of African children’s academic performance themselves are not the only problem in education connected with HIV/AIDS. Moreover, bad performan
Order this paper