AIDS Education - How Effective?

With AIDS prevalence and incidence still high in some parts of the world and still a public health concern in the U.S., there's no arguing that more effective AIDS prevention programs are still needed to be designed and implemented. Over 150 Americans are diagnosed with HIV every day.

Foremost in the fight in AIDS prevention is raising awareness on this disease through proper sex education. The problem with most sex education curricula implemented in schools is its discordance with what the youth would need to know. Most teachers, policy makers, and concern parents still think that AIDS education is something beyond the scope of young mentality, that teenage students are not 'adult' or 'old' enough to understand what this disease is and on the importance of AIDS prevention.

However, statistics belie this perception, as more teenagers become HIV positive and most proceed to have full-blown AIDS even before reaching their mid-twenties.

So how do educators approach this big problem?

First, an effective and comprehensive curricula should be formulated, one that not only imparts the whats and the hows, but also the social and psychological implications of HIV and the necessity of AIDS prevention without requiring difficult sacrifices on your sexuality.

Focusing on abstinence as the sole way to avoid HIV infection and prevent AIDS is wrong. Government policymakers and agencies have put in considerable resources into this campaign, only to come up short from the expected results. Telling young people to wait for marriage before having sex is not effective in preventing them from being curious and indulging in ways to satisfy this curiosity. Most often than not, young people pressured to abstain would begin practicing sex with inadequate knowledge on protecting themselves, if any at all. Though most teenagers have understood that the use of condoms would significantly reduce the risk of getting STDs and avoid pregnancies, they don't have sufficient know how on its proper handling and use, rendering any effort in using it in birth control and AIDS prevention useless.

Therefore, an effective AIDS prevention program hinges not only on a single behavior, method or use of devices. As young children turn into teenagers and young adults, they must be armed with sufficient information that would enable them to make enlightened decisions. They must know that there are different options available out there to protect themselves, such as condoms and other contraceptives, and it is within their rights to use them. Sure, abstinence and fidelity would probably be the most ideal way to go, but modern society, with its changing norms and influences, often render those options impractical. They must be given a chance to explore other possibilities, and know that contraceptives, when used with free choice and proper knowledge, are not bad things after all. To better understand the concept of AIDS prevention and practice of safe sex would also serve to drive home the fact that STDs, particularly the HIV virus, is out there and may catch the unwary and the unprotected.

Instead of spending much effort on debating morals and ethics, emphasis should be placed on the ideals of making free choices and responsibility, and on the promotion of proper AIDS prevention programs.

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