RESEARCH ARTICLE
Analysis of HIV/AIDS Integration into the Academic Curriculum at a Selected University in South Africa
Tinotenda Murwira Success1, *, Khoza Lunic Base2, Jabu Tsakani Mabunda1, Sonto Maria Maputle2, Mamotema M. Peta3
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 13
First Page: 667
Last Page: 676
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-13-667
DOI: 10.2174/1874944502013010667
Article History:
Received Date: 09/09/2020Revision Received Date: 22/09/2020
Acceptance Date: 04/10/2020
Electronic publication date: 25/11/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Although there is evidence that education is a social weapon in the fight against HIV/AIDS, there is also evidence that, to date, HIV/AIDS is not fully integrated into all the disciplines in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Therefore, most of the university students in South Africa are not well prepared to be HIV/AIDS-competent graduates who can live and work in a society ravaged by AIDS.
Objective:
This study sought to analyse the extent of HIV/AIDS integration into the curricula in various departments at a selected university in the Limpopo Province, South Africa.
Materials and Methods:
The study used quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyse the extent of HIV/AIDS integration into the curricula. The curriculum calendars were retrieved from the university website. An audit tool guided retrieval of HIV/AIDS content and was analysed using SPSS V 25. The qualitative content analysis was used to describe the nature of HIV/AIDS content.
Results:
Out of eight schools, about 68 modules had HIV/AIDS content. The majority of the modules (53; 78%) were offered at the undergraduate level. Furthermore, the majority of the HIV/AIDS content (62; 91%) was integrated into undergraduate compulsory modules. Most (34; 51%) of the HIV/AIDS content were located in health sciences disciplines. HIV/AIDS content was mostly integrated into existing carrier modules. Time allocation for the teaching of HIV/AIDS was not indicated. Most of the modules did have information about teaching and assessment strategies.
Conclusion:
It is recommended that discipline-specific HIV/AIDS content be integrated into all disciplines.
