Although many countries include HIV and AIDS education in their curricula, recent evaluations in school settings highlight a number of common shortcomings : within already crowded curricula, HIV and AIDS education often gets little or no attention; when part of the curricula, HIV and AIDS are usually not covered comprehensively; teachers frequently lack adequate training or access to ap-propriate resources to meet HIV curriculum requirements effectively; HIV and AIDS curricula generally emphasise fact acquisition over life skills-based education and behaviour or attitude changes; HIV and AIDS curricula often do not incorporate sensitive but important topics such as gender issues, sexuality, and sociocul- tural contexts; specific or relevant monitoring or evaluation strategies are seldom employed to assess learning outcomes or behaviour changes.
Overall, these weaknesses demonstrate that curricula often do not cover the topic in a meaningful and relevant way, and that sensitive but vital issues remain untaught. In some cases, HIV and AIDS are simply not addressed at all.
During 2003 to 2014, the IBE worked in several programmes to integrate HIV and AIDS education in a more effective way into official curricula, particularly through:
The IBE HIV and AIDS programme was part of the UNESCO's Strategy for Responding to HIV and AIDS.
