South Africa has the highest prevalence of HIV infections among youth and adolescents worldwide, accounting for nearly 18% of global HIV infections among 15 to 24-year-old youth in 2016 [1]. Despite the decrease in HIV infections worldwide, South Africa had 9.9 new infections per 1000 adults in 2016, with approximately 37% of those new infections in young people aged 15–24 years 22% in young women [2]. The high prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV among South African youth, is attributed to the fact that young people engage in risky sexual behaviours such as non-condom use, multiple sexual partners, transactional sex and early sexual debut [3]. These young people include university going students who are more vulnerable to HIV infections as compared to the general population [4, 5]. In light of this, there remains a critical need to prevent HIV among the youth if the battle is against the pandemic is to be won [6].

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa decided to integrate HIV/AIDS into the curriculum to produce HIV/AIDS competent graduates [7]. In a bid to ensure that students in the tertiary sector are adequately prepared to live and work in a society ravaged by HIV/AIDS, the higher educator sector was singled out as having a pivotal role to play in responding to the impact of HIVAIDS [8]. For instance, the core business of universities such as teaching, research, and engagement, were seen as the most contributors towards addressing the epidemic [9].

The rationale for including HIV/AIDS in the university curriculum is undeniable in South Africa and beyond. The basic argument for incorporating HIV/AIDS into the curriculum rest on the protective effect of education on health [10]. The assumption is that HIV/AIDS education is pivotal in ensuring that students have the necessary knowledge and skills to adopt protective behaviours against HIV, other sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies [7]. Although authors [11-13] observed that “increased knowledge about HIV/IDS may not necessarily lead to positive behaviour change, yet knowledge about a disease may be an initial step towards behavioral risk change”. Hence, it is acknowledged as the first stage in the behaviour change process [14]. As such higher education occupies a unique position to influence the discussion, to act and to develop policy on HIV/AIDS, and, in the absence of a cure, education is the best social solution to the epidemic [10].

It is argued that higher education institutions have a moral and intellectual duty to produce students who can deal with HIV and AIDS on a personal and professional basis and find creative solutions to this epidemic [15, 16]. This simply implies that students are the future leaders in government and private sectors in terms of any country's development. Therefore, it is imperative to target this age group cohort for HIV and sexuality education [8, 17]. Therefore, universities should be at the forefront of battling the pandemic as most students fall under HIV at-risk population group of under 25, and HIV/AIDS can undermine the function of higher education institutions [17]. Due to the absence of a vaccine or cure for HIV/ AIDS, its prevention relies on the adoption of safe sexual behaviours and therefore, education remains the critical enabler for changing risk behaviours [8, 17]. It is against this backdrop that universities have an essential role to play in the fight against the pandemic.

Despite HIV/AIDS education being singled out as urgent much has not been done to integrate it into the academic curriculum [7, 10]. They are a few examples that highlight how HIV/AIDS content is being introduced into academic curricula in different universities across the globe. Needs assessment surveys and reviews conducted in Africa and around the world to measure the HIV/AIDS curricular response show that the teaching of HIV/AIDS was minimum; it depended on the interest of the faculty [9, 18-23]. In general, HIV/AIDS education in higher education is offered in four main ways: stand-alone module, adding it into existing modules, HIV/AIDS focused qualifications, and HIV/AIDS focused research [9, 21, 23]. The reluctance or inability to teach about HIV/AIDS has been attributed to several factors. Lecturers who are supposed to teach HIV/AIDS have insufficient knowledge about curriculum integration, fear that HIV and AIDS content can dilute discipline content, they are not trained to teach sensitive issues in class, and they see it as a waste of time [24-26]

There is little information available concerning howHEIs in South Africa integrate HIV/AIDS into the curriculum [25, 27-29] (25, 27-29). The bulk of HIV initiatives in higher education are extra-curricular rather than curricular. Little is known about how it is taught. Information provided by previous surveys regarding the teaching of HIV/AIDS is based on academic perceptions [9, 20-22, 30]. Therefore the current study seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of how HIV/AIDS is integrated into curricula.

The university students at the institution engage in unprotected sex, putting themselves at risk of HIV infection as confirmed by different studies conducted at the university [31, 32]. Also, regular student reproductive health statistics at the university suggest there is an increase of STIs(60%), HIV infections(100%), termination of pregnancies(32%) referrals(40%) and unplanned pregnancies(60%)in the last five years [33]. Furthermore, a recent study at the University of Venda suggests that male students have a negative attitude towards contraceptives, such as condoms, and they did not use them [34]. Besides, there is inadequate HIV/AIDS education and limited commitment by the university to support these programmes [35]. Taken together, these facts provide a compelling rationale to focus on HIV/AIDS education in Higher education institutions [36]. The purpose of the study was to analyse the extent of HIV/AIDS integration in the curricula in various schools and departments at the University of Venda.

The study found out that HIV/AIDS content was integrated into only 68 modules. These findings corroborate the surveys conducted by [9, 21, 30], which also concluded that minimal HIV/AIDS content is included in the curricula. Furthermore, this corroborates a recent systematic review conducted by [7], which also indicated that worldwide that HIV/AIDS content is not fully integrated into curricula. These findings show that little progress has been made regarding the integration of HIV/AIDS content into curricula since previous studies in 2005 and 2010, which indicated that integration of HIV/AIDS content was neglected by most higher education institutions in South Africa [7]. This can be explained by the fact that lecturers who are supposed to teach HIV/AIDS have insufficient knowledge about curriculum integration, fear that HIV and AIDS content can dilute discipline content, they are not trained to teach sensitive issues in class, and they see it as a waste of time [15].

Similar to other studies, our study reported that HIV/AIDS content was integrated mainly into health sciences disciplines [9, 10, 21, 40]. This is not surprising since this is the trend nationally and internationally, whereby HIV/AIDS issues are regarded as health issues rather than as social issues [9, 23]. More so, health, medical and allied health disciplines are expected by their respective degree councils to equip students with HIV/AIDS competencies [7]. This can also be explained by the fact that the majority of the lecturer in universities do not understand what integration entails [15, 28]. It may be that curricular content reflects the views and interests of academics teaching these modules. HIV/AIDS content can be integrated into a variety of modules in any discipline [15, 25, 41].

The study findings also showed that HIV/AIDS content was integrated more into undergraduate compulsory first-year level modules. This is in line with studies conducted in different countries to assess the integration of HIV/AIDS into the academic curriculum in higher learning institutions [7, 30, 42]. HEAIDS (2010) recommends that HIV/AIDS content should be taught at all levels of learning, beginning at the entry-level of education so that students grow with filters as they progress. Authors [7, 29] argue that “that while students must learn about the specific aspects of the pandemic that will impact on their professional practice, the inclusion of HIV in only one module may limit the student's understanding of the complex nature of the pandemic”. This means that lack of cross-curriculum integration may mean that students forget what they have learned since it is not reinforced in other modules. Besides, it is argued that HIV/AIDS content should be embedded in all modules that are compulsory at all levels because HIV/AIDS affects everyone [15, 25, 26, 30, 43]. All graduates are expected to be exposed to HIV/AIDS content from entry-level to exit level [7]. From a holistic perspective, HIV/AIDS education can be integrated into every discipline, but this needs to be done at the programme level when curricula are designed to avoid repetition and omission of knowledge and skills [44].

The narrow HIV/AIDS content found in the curricula, mainly focuses on biomedical aspects such as epidemiology, prevention, psychosocial factors and treatment. Similar findings were reported in previous studies [15, 30, 41]. According to behaviour change theories, knowledge, attitudes, and skills are the keys to the decision to adopt or change HIV risk behaviours [45, 46]. Therefore, if HIV/AIDS education is to be effective, three components must be holistically addressed by the curriculum; they should emphasize knowledge, attitude skills to achieve the change of behaviour [45, 47]. HIV/AIDS content or competencies should have a reflection of both cognitive and affective domains that may influence behaviour change among the youth [5, 9, 23]. Young people in South Africa and beyond possess a high level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS [21, 48]. However, there is a gap between knowledge and behaviour change among youth [3]. Authors [7, 8, 49] suggest HIV/AIDS education is best approached from a critical paradigm that recognises the need to challenge and change social norms, human behaviour, laws, policies and practices in societies impacted by the pandemic. They pinpointed issues such as social justice issues, gender inequalities, poverty, legal implications, developmental implications, management and workplace issues, social and psychological issues, ethical issues, human rights issues, health issues as some of the issues to be included in the curriculum [7]. Others suggest that content should be relevant to both the discipline and the context in which the students live and work [15, 28]. This implies that professionals interacting with the public must be able to deal with constraints imposed by socio-cultural norms around HIV/ AIDS and related topics [9].

Majority of the modules had HIV/AIDS content integrated into the carrier module, followed by HIV-infused modules and then stand-alone modules. This corresponds to an HIV/AIDS curriculum audit conducted at other institutions [9, 21, 22, 30, 43], which found the same pattern that HIV/AIDS was integrated into the main carrier. Integration into a 'carrier' courses is where HIV/AIDS is relevant in certain courses in the health and social sciences, education, or that deal with ethics or human rights [7]. This is because it is technically and administratively simpler and more feasible to accomplish [7, 10]. In addition, it is clear where and when to include it and who is responsible for it, needs fewer specialised teachers and assessment is facilitated [10]. However, despite being simple, the integration of HIV/AIDS into carrier modules means that certain aspects of HIV/ AIDS can be included in the module, and other equally important elements will be neglected [18]. Authors [7, 28, 29] suggests that there is a need to adopt a holistic view of HIV/AIDS in the curriculum; therefore, a stand-alone module, if used, needs to be supplemented by some form of curricular infusion at the programme level to ensure adequate coverage and avoidance of duplication.

The content analysis further indicates teaching methods were didactic in nature, and the majority of modules omitted the teaching strategies. This study is consistent with research conducted in other higher education institutions, which concluded that traditional classroom-based teaching strategies were the most commonly used methods for delivering HIV/AIDS education [9, 20-23]. Different pedagogy scholars argue that traditional classroom-based teaching does not promote deep learning despite being praised for maintaining academic rigour [50, 51]. Authors [10, 51] suggest that interactive and participatory methods that encourage participation and discussion among teachers and students are central to the teaching and learning of HIV/AIDS among young people. Therefore, active participation and experiential learning approaches, interactive learning methods and internet-based online are recommended [8, 17, 44]. In other words, when teaching HIV/AIDS education, there should be a mix of didactic and experiential approaches.

The study also shows that most modules did not specify assessment strategies. However, modules in the school of health and education, indicate that traditional assessment methods such as examination, tests and assignment methods were used to evaluate HIV/AIDS content. In the context of tertiary education in South Africa, traditional evaluation methods are the norm, as reflected in the use of written examinations, testing and assignments [52]. Traditional examination-based evaluation, while praised for setting standards across a student group, is criticised for not being effective in measuring individual learning. Innovative methods of assessment that encourage reflection on learning experience are required [52].

The study concludes that HIV/AIDS content is taught in all schools at UNIVEN. Out of 68 modules that teach HIV/AIDS content, it is mainly taught at the undergraduate level and mostly in health sciences disciplines. Although there is evidence that HIV/AIDS content is found across all schools curricula, several departments in the School of Mathematical & Natural sciences, Agriculture Sciences, Management Sciences and Environmental Sciences did not have modules with HIV/AIDS content. This suggests that most departments at Univen are not integrating HIV/AIDS content. It is recommended that HIV/AIDS content should be integrated into all postgraduate and undergraduate disciplines. Furthermore, considering that HIV/AIDS is a fast-paced field, regular curricular reviews should be conducted to update and strengthen those modules with existing HIV/AIDS content.