There are more than one billion adolescents in the world.
Young people are very valuable to society.
It is worth investing heavily in them so that they can protect their own health and influence and educate their peers. This can be done by promoting effective AIDS education programmes in school alongside preventive efforts in the community and the media. Education is a national concern in all parts of the world, and so cooperation at the highest levels of government is important in making school AIDS education programmes work. Experience in various parts of the world indicates that, working in collaboration with ministries of education and with health and social services, each country's national AIDS programme should aim to provide 100 per cent of schoolchildren with AIDS education. Education of this kind has been shown to help young people to delay sex and, when they become sexually active, to avoid risk behaviour.