HIV/AIDS, poverty and education: The circle of hope and despair

This article concerns the impact that HIV/Aids, as a pandemic, is having on education, within the context of the poverty discourse. It considers the scale and scope of the pandemic and its anticipated impact on education systems in heavily-infected sub-Saharan 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