Mizoram Education Minister Dr Lalthangliana today stressed the need for creating awareness about HIV/AIDS among the school children. At a discussion on how to impart sex education to teenaged students, the minister said, ''It is a disconcerting fact that while everybody considers us to be a very healthy and clean society, we are being attacked by the dreaded disease.''
There is an urgent need for the state to teach the basic facts about the disease in all schools at all districts by this year, he added.The minister also pointed out that while the victims of the HIV virus were mainly high and higher secondary students, there was need to impart awareness at middle school levels.

Education department's principal secretary Vanhela Pachau, who also spoke at the meeting, said learning about the disease through text books was not enough.Instead of teaching the students about HIV/AIDS through their text books, they must be encouraged to learn about the disease through the media to have more effect, he said.

Joint director of State Council of Education and Research Training Sangchhuanmawii said awareness on AIDS have been conducted in the districts of Aizawl, Lunglei, Champhai and Serchhip and surveys had revealed AIDS victims were mainly aged between 15 and 29-years of age.

She stressed the need to impart sex education to students and said an on-going programme of the education sector would try to cover 90 per cent of schools within the state in this regard during the current fiscal.

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