THE INTEGRATION OF HIV/AIDS STUDIES INTO THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM OF EDO STATE, NIGERIA: AN EXPLORATORY INVESTIGATION

HIV/AIDS has become a threat to every individual, family, community, nation and the entire humankind in the contemporary modern world. Scientists, researchers, traditional healers and medical practitioners have not succeeded in their effort to get a cure for the scourge of HIV/AIDS. People in the developing countries, especially, those in rural communities, are less informed about the pandemic. The absence of the study of HIV/AIDS in the school curriculum has resulted in the fact that people do not formally learn to know more about the pandemic and this has resulted in myths regarding its causes and spread. In Edo state of Nigeria like many other parts of Africa victims of HIV/AIDS do not receive much support from their families because of the fear that they risk contracting the disease by drinking from the same cup, eating from the same bowls or touching the victims. Lack of education has been a single most serious cause of wrong perceptions and myths. One way to demystify HIV/AIDS is to integrate the study of the pandemic into the mainstream school curriculum as a teaching and learning subject. Public education through technological media does not reach a majority of the rural population in Edo State which is why the spread does not seem to abate. This paper explores the feasibility of introducing HIV/AIDS into the school curriculum in the Edo State of Nigeria. It is assumed that the teaching of HIV/AIDS in schools could assist in dispelling the myths surrounding the pandemic and that the knowledge gained from studying the disease might empower the people to live with it, manage it and reduce the infection and stigma attached to HIV/AIDS.