Overview:

School girl The HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB epidemic represents a serious challenge to education systems throughout Africa. High prevalence countries in southern and eastern Africa face high teacher losses, increasing numbers of pupils without adequate financial support, and a growing number of children who drop out of school to care for younger siblings or ill relatives. For children who do attend school, educational quality may be in decline because of lack of teachers due to mortality, morbidity, and absenteeism to care for sick relatives and attend funerals. HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB threatens to undermine the progress that many education ministries have made in the past decade to improve teacher training and supervision, teacher/pupil ratios, the quality and relevance of curricula, the availability of textbooks, the quality of education management information systems, the efficiency of administration, and access to education for all, especially girls.

What needs to be done:

First, ESSA has developed a strategy for addressing HIV/AIDS, Malaria & TB and education through capacity strengthening, life-skills education in the classroom, developing of education materials and delivering innovative educational opportunities to children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB. For example, ESSA formed a Mobile Task Team. They work with education ministry and missions to develop strategic and implementation plans to manage the impact of HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB on education systems. The ESSA education team also assists mission to incorporate HIV, Malaria and TB activities into their education frameworks, coordinates mission/ministry activities source education materials and funding from other sources for HIV Malaria and TB activities, and develops indicators to monitor HIV and education outcomes.

Second, the education team collaborates with partners on intr-agency HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB education issue and provides input. The team provides leadership on HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB education.

Finally, ESSA education team is involved in research on the management and mitigation of teacher losses, classroom-level HIV, Malaria and TB prevention activities and developing education kits and supplementary education materials for teachers and their students and strategies for addressing the educational needs of orphans and other children affected by HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB. The team will coordinate this research with two planned clearinghouses, one focusing on HIV, Malaria and TB prevention education at the schools level and developing education materials for various levels of education, the other devoted to HIV Malaria and TB impact management studies at the schools levels.

Challenges:

  • Strengthening central education ministry capacity such as the Kenya Institute of Education for long-term strategic planning and management of the impacts of HIV, Malaria and TB in the education workforce, and among pupils.
  • Supporting education ministries and NGOs in innovative delivery of basic education to orphans and vulnerable children, with a special focus on HIV Malaria and TB prevention, community mobilization, and girl's education.