New Bank report calls for ‘education vaccine'

May 8, 2002—HIV/AIDS kills teachers faster than they can be

trained, makes orphans of students, and threatens to derail

efforts by highly-infected countries to get all boys and girls into

primary school by 2015, a new World Bank report, launched

yesterday, warns. And yet a good basic education ranks among

the most effective, and cost-effective means of preventing HIV.

According to the report, Education and HIV/AIDS: A Window of

Hope, countries need to urgently strengthen their education

systems. Education offers a window of hope unlike any other for

countries, communities, and families to escape the deadly grip of

HIV/AIDS. Vigorous pursuit of the Education for All goals is

imperative, along with education aimed at HIV prevention.

Education systems that promote a nation's future are being

gravely threatened by the epidemic, particularly in areas of high

or rising HIV prevalence.

World Bank President, James D. Wolfensohn, writing in a

foreword to the report, says that the World Bank is a committed

partner along with developing countries, UN agencies, aid donors

and others in the global effort to provide every child with access

to a basic education, but adds that the task of achieving EFA in

countries afflicted by HIV/AIDS is extremely difficult:

"With more than 113 million children not in school in the poorest

countries, this already presents a major challenge. However,

HIV/AIDS makes this much greater in those countries where the

education system was already struggling to grow, teachers are

dying, or are too sick to teach. And every year more children are

losing their parents and the support that allows them to go to

school. Achieving Education for All in a world of AIDS presents

an unprecedented challenge to the world education community."

AIDS destroys

The scale of the AIDS epidemic is enormous. UNAIDS estimates

that by the end of 2001, over 40 million people were living with

HIV/AIDS, 17.6 million of them adult women, and 2.7 million

children under 15 years. About 5 million people were newly

infected in 2001 alone—roughly the same as in 1999. AIDS

orphans and other vulnerable children now number some 15.6

million, following nearly 25 million AIDS deaths by the end of

2001.

The epidemic's grip on Africa has been by far the deadliest, but

no part of the world is immune. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the

epicenter: Average life expectancy has now fallen to 47 years

(compared with an estimated 62 without AIDS), and its

prevalence rates are the world's highest—above 10 percent in 16

countries and as high as 44 percent in some groups (pregnant

women in urban Botswana). Globally, the epidemic is on the

upswing, spreading fastest in Eastern Europe: New infections in

the Russian Federation appear to be almost doubling annually

since 1998. Data from Asia too warn against complacency:

National prevalence rates are low but mask localized epidemics,

and infection rates in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand are in

the 2-4 percent range and similar to many West African

countries, while India is second only to South Africa in the

number of people currently infected.

The epidemic has a profound impact on growth and poverty.

UNAIDS estimates a loss of more than 20 percent of GDP by

2020 in the worst-affected countries and a rapid increase in the

number of destitute families, faced with lower income, more

dependents, and sharply higher health care expenditures.

Already weak private sectors are crumbling further, as companies

face higher costs from training, insurance, benefits, and

absenteeism.

AIDS and education

Most devastating and far-reaching, perhaps, is the epidemic's

impact on education systems. Half of the world's 15,000 new

infections every day occur among 15- to 24-year-olds (1999). The

epidemic's ravages are well under way in Africa's worst-affected

countries, which face high teacher prevalence rates (30 percent

in Malawi), a burgeoning of the orphan and out-of-school

population and a widening gender gap in education. Already more

vulnerable than boys to HIV infection, girls are also more

vulnerable to dropping out of school, being more often retained at

home to care for sick relatives or assume other domestic duties.

The full scope of the epidemic's impact on education can be seen

in the context of the formidable challenges already confronting

the sector. More than 113 million children, aged 6 to 12, are out

of school in developing countries, two-thirds of them girls. Of

those who enter school, one out of four drops out before attaining

literacy. Even without reflecting the epidemic's impact, at least

55 of the poorest countries seem unlikely to achieve universal

primary enrollment by 2015; 28 of these countries are also

among the 45 worst affected by HIV/AIDS. With AIDS, several of

the worst-hit countries (such as South Africa and Botswana) are

seeing a reversal of hard-won educational gains, while countries

already struggling to achieve EFA goals are being further set

back. Attaining the goals is an even dimmer prospect when EFA

is defined to encompass completion of the primary

cycle—essential for true learning. A total of 88 countries are

estimated to be at risk of not attaining universal primary

completion by 2015. The goal of eliminating gender disparities in

primary and secondary education by 2005 poses an even greater

challenge, given that the date is fast approaching, as well as the

greater likelihood of girls dropping out of school because of

HIV/AIDS in their immediate families.

"The time for business as usual is past; no country can afford not

to act. Worst-affected countries need to arrest the epidemic's

ravages and protect future generations—Uganda and Thailand

have shown this to be possible," says Don Bundy, lead author of

Education and HIV/AIDS: A Window of Hope and a World Bank

specialist on school health. "Low-prevalence countries need to

recognize the speed with which complacency can lead to crisis

and, equally, the tremendous opportunity for saving of lives and

financial resources through prevention. For all countries, two

mutually reinforcing objectives are paramount: prevention of HIV

and protection and sustenance of the education sector."

Useful links:Click here to read the press release. Click here to

read the transcript of the press conference. Click here for more

on the Bank's work in education and here for more on the Bank's

work in the area of HIV/AIDS.