HIV/AIDS Adversely Affects Quality Education—Education Minister

Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang

The Minister of Education Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang has indicated that impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic could adversely affect the quality of education within institutions.

She explained that it could neither be expected of a sick, depressed, unmotivated or demoralized staff to teach effectively nor for an infected student to fully observe and concentrate on his or her studies.

Addressing a symposium and the internal bi-annual meeting on education, which started in Accra Monday, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang stressed “HIV and AIDS can reduce student enrolments through deaths, illness, financial constraints, and demand for home care of sick relatives and friends.”

The Minister urged tertiary and higher education institutions to be cautious of how the HIV and AIDS was affecting their functioning and operation, especially, in countries where the prevalence was high.

The three-day event, being organised by the Association of African Universities (AAU) in partnership with the UNAIDS Inter – Agency Task Team (IATT) on Education and UNESCO, seeks to discuss pertinent issues bordering on HIV and tertiary education: prevention, protection and scholarship.

It is on the theme: “HIV Education Policy Development and Implementation in Higher Education.”

Furthermore, participants drawn from the academia including University lecturers and students from Ghana, Kenya, the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland would attempt to explore those issues and good practices regarding HIV in the tertiary educational set up.

The IATT on Education was created in 2002 to support accelerated and improved education sector responses to HIV and AIDS.

Its membership includes UNAIDS as co-sponsors, bi-lateral agencies, private donors and civil society partners.

In addition, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang alerted among other means that abstinence on the part of the youth would help slow down the rate of spread.

She also advocated the reduction of sexual partners and the use of condoms to prevent being infected with the deadly disease.

Other speakers at the symposium also called for institutionalising HIV and AIDS as a course, noting it would increase the fight against the pandemic.

Currently in Ghana, the University of Ghana, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Education, Winneba, have instituted HIV/AIDS as a course.

For his part, Prof. John Anarfi of the University of Ghana said the integration of HIV and AIDS into the curriculum has started gaining grounds in some of the traditional institutions in the country and other African countries like Nigeria.

He, therefore, underscored the need for incorporation as part of the general curricula to serve as an advocacy platform in higher education.

A lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, Prof. Awusabo Asare also stated that HIV and AIDS could be studied alongside other subjects.

“HIV and AIDS can be studied along a wide range of subjects from science to languages, which would help to improve service and care of the pandemic,” he said.

Prof. Asare added that HIV and AIDS could well be understood through research, disclosing, “Academic research is conducted to know a little bit more than what we already know.”