Twenty years ago, it was widely expected that the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa would lead to a severe deterioration in the educational outcomes among a rapidly expanding orphan population. This article reviews the extent to which this happened by analysing recent national household survey evidence from five high HIV prevalence countries, namely Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The main findings are that while some orphans continue to be educationally disadvantaged in some countries, the overall sizes of already quite small enrolment and educational attainment differentials between orphans and non-orphans have not significantly increased in any of these countries. The main reasons for this are the overall decline in the orphan population (due to the mass availability of life-prolonging anti-retro viral medication), free primary education, lower levels of absolute poverty, and targeted support of various kinds for orphans by governments and NGOs.

二十年前，人们普遍预计，撒哈拉以南非洲的艾滋病毒/艾滋病流行将导致迅速扩大的孤儿人口的教育成果严重恶化。本文通过分析来自五个艾滋病毒高发国家（莱索托，马拉维，南非，乌干达和津巴布韦）的近期全国家庭调查证据，回顾了这种情况的严重程度。主要发现是，尽管某些国家中某些孤儿继续在教育方面处于不利地位，但在这些国家中，孤儿和非孤儿之间已经很小的入学率和教育程度差异的总体规模并未显着增加。造成这种情况的主要原因是孤儿总数总体下降（由于延长寿命的抗逆转录病毒药物的大量供应），