The impact of HIV/AIDS on poverty and education in Africa

This article deals with the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on poverty and education in Africa. It considers the scale and scope of the pandemic and its anticipated impact on education systems in heavily infected sub-Saharan African countries. It looks for lessons derived from twenty years of coping with HIV/AIDS in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The paper concludes by suggesting how the education sector can improve its management response to the pandemic in order to protect education provision and quality, and to mitigate the distress of increasing numbers of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC).