HIV and AIDS Education For Out-of-School Young People*

What is the Issue?

Worldwide, some 120 million school-aged children are not attending school , and slightly half of these are girls. In those countries worst-affected by HIV and AIDS, the majority of the 10-24 year olds are not in school. Numerous barriers inhibit their attendance including:

• Economic hardship prohibiting the payment of fees associated with schooling e.g., books, uniforms and tuition

• Household obligations including housework, child care, or work to supplement family income

• Gender discrimination, by which families may see education for girls as less important than for boys (See brief on ‘Girls education and HIV prevention')

• Insufficient or inappropriate education due to a lack of schools, poor quality curricula, or a shortage of trained teachers

• Poor infrastructure (e.g., roads and transportation) inhibiting youth from getting to and from school quickly or safely

• National policies that prevent eligible learners from attending school (e.g., preventing pregnant girls from continuing their education or children without a birth certificate from school admission)

• Emergencies and social conflict (e.g., natural disasters or wars) or social marginalization of certain groups (e.g., street children, orphans, or child soldiers)

Youth who do not attend school or who drop out prematurely miss many of the fundamentals of basic education—learning how to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. But they are also disadvantaged as they miss the opportunity to learn and practice knowledge and life skills related to HIV in a stable and credible classroom setting.

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Why Does it Matter?

Out-of-school youth are at a disproportionately higher risk to HIV infection as they:

• Lack access to the vital health, sexual and reproductive health education, counselling, and services often provided in school settings

• Miss the structure, protection and activities that the school environment typically provides

• May face stigma and discrimination that prevent them from adopting risk-reductive behaviours

• May be more vulnerable to experimentation with alcohol and drug abuse, an important predictor of increased sexual experimentation and risk-taking

• Have unequal social and economic status, increasing their vulnerability to coercive or abusive situations, including sexual exploitation, trafficking , violence, or 'sugar daddy' practices where men exchange money or gifts for sexual favours from a young woman

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What Needs to Be Done?

Ministries of Education, civil society organizations, and their development partners can support HIV and AIDS education for out-of school youth by:

• Supporting policies that encourage young people to stay in school e.g., abolishing school fees or providing financial assistance for school-related costs to poor families and orphans; using innovative curricula and delivery to reach young people in rural areas; and supporting pregnant girls and married adolescents to return to school.

• Providing out-of-school young people with accurate information and life skills related to reproductive and sexual health and rights, and HIV and AIDS. This includes encouraging the delay of sexual debut and reducing the number of sexual partners, and using condoms and other protective measures correctly and consistently.

• Ensuring out-of-school young people benefit from HIV and AIDS services and are effectively included in sexual health programmes. This includes promoting youth-friendly and gender-responsive health services including voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), early diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), access to preventive commodities such as (male and female) condoms and clean needles and syringes, and anti-retroviral therapy (ART).

• Addressing the particular vulnerability of out-of-school youth through a wide range of policies and programmes that protect them from harm, expand their access to information and services, and support their personal development.

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What Works?  

Successful programmes that support the development and delivery of HIV education and services for out-of-school young people:

• Are based on the real, assessed needs of young people , rather than on adults' perceptions

• Actively involve young people themselves as partners in the design, implementation and evaluation of activities

• Use appropriate and realistic messages and materials that acknowledge the challenges in young peoples' lives and are tailored to the particular circumstances of different groups

• Are economically, physically, and socially accessible to out-of-school youth by reducing or eliminating costs, providing services in venues that are safe and non-intimidating (including where youth spend their work and leisure time), and at times appropriate for different lifestyles

• Use a range of media (e.g., print, radio, television and traditional media ) and information and communication technologies to reach out-of-school young people.

• Rely on multiply entry points (such as youth-friendly health counseling and services, peer and adult community educators, mobile prevention services) and link with existing programmes that offer literacy, health, employment, and livelihood information and services

• Involve community leaders to add social credibility to information

• Use a wide variety of partnerships across sectors and with partners that play a role in supporting out-of-school young people e.g., community and youth leaders, educational planners, sport personalities, celebrities, religious leaders and media professionals

• Build in-country capacity to monitor, evaluate, and scale up successful programmes based on experience and lessons-learned

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Key Partners

• Relevant ministries (e.g., Education, Health, Social Welfare, and Youth)

• Civil society organizations, including CARE, the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, and Save the Children and others providing education, food and shelter for vulnerable youth

• International agencies, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and its Member Associations UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA, and the World Bank

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Key Resources 

• Family Health International (FHI), Reaching Out-of-School Youth with Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS Information and Services , Youth Issues Paper 4, YouthNet, FHI, 2004

• Middleton-Lee S., Ireland E., Effective Peer Education: Working with Children and Young People on Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS , Save the Children UK , 2004

• UNAIDS et al. , Guide to Monitoring and Evaluating National HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes for Young People , WHO, 2004

• WHO et al. , Protecting Young People from HIV and AIDS: The Role of Health Services , WHO , 2004

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* Source: “HIV and AIDS Education for Out-Of-School Young People”, prepared by UNFPA for the UNESCO EDUCAIDS Initiative)

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