The challenge of integrating HIV/AIDS awareness into the school curriculum

HIV/AIDS awareness needs to be taught in the context of wider health education, according to practitioners. "HIV/AIDS education is not something isolated. Its all about avoiding risky behaviour, learning healthy life skills and decision making, which are not only responsible for HIV/AIDS but can cause several other physical and mental disorders," Naureen Butt, programme officer at the Aga Khan Education Services Pakistan (AKESP) told IRIN from southern port city of Karachi, capital of Sindh province, on Friday. More than 60 percent of the country's population is below the age of 25, with half of them approaching the age of sexual activity. But non-availability of proper guidance and counselling to adolescents in general and particularly in schools, is a social problem in Pakistan exposing young people to HIV infection. "We are at conceptual stage as yet. We need to tackle other communicable diseases, as well as challenges and issues of adolescence, by integrating the information in a religious and cultural perspective to enhance general health," Butt added. Educational authorities in collaboration with the UN Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), two years ago, developed a guidebook for schoolteachers containing information about HIV/AIDS and other adolescence issues. "For the first time a teacher guidebook has been published on such sensitive issues considered taboo in the country," Arshad Saeed Khan, a programme officer at UNESCO, told IRIN in the capital Islamabad. The 'Teacher Guidebook on moral and health education of Adolescents', published in Urdu language only, contains useful information on adolescence, sexually transmitted diseases, negative effects of drugs or narcotics, modes of transmission of HIV/AIDS and prevention measures. "The text of teachers' manual was developed after a long process of consultations, creative work, and review meetings, so that it could be made acceptable for all sections of society" Khan added. The copies of guidebook have been distributed to nearly 166 teacher training institutes throughout the country. But "mass-scale orientation is needed for some 700,000 primary and secondary school teachers to disseminate information about the proper use of the guidebook," Aurangzeb Rehman, dealing with the project at the curriculum wing of the education ministry told IRIN. "Being a traditional Islamic society, it has not been possible so far to include information about HIV/AIDS, adolescence or reproductive health in school textbooks. The issue has been a cause of concern among the teachers, parents and in religious circles," he added. Nabia Farah, a programme officer at SAHIL, an NGO working against child sexual abuse, told IRIN in Islamabad: "We received positive feedback from female participants, both students and teachers, during our training sessions in secondary schools in the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi." The government and private sector have been working to make young people aware of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and provide information and skills about reproductive health and other adolescence issues. An effective evaluation and monitoring system should be in place to check the impact and acceptance level of the teachers, students, parents and of community in general to take the programme to a national level, health activists stressed.