On 15 June 2009 the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) on Education convened a Symposium on "Teachers and HIV & AIDS: Reviewing achievements, identifying challenges" in Limerick, Ireland. The Symposium aimed to review progress in involving teachers in the HIV and AIDS response and to consider how this review can improve efforts to achieve Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to "halt and reverse the spread of HIV" by 2015. This publication by the UNAIDS IATT on Education puts forward a joint position by all IATT members on the education response to HIV and AIDS, and places particular emphasis on the importance tailoring actions in the education sector to the context where these are being implemented. This report synthesises the key issues discussed at the symposium and the conclusions reached during this meeting.