Using Soft Systems Methodology, this dissertation presents an evaluation of the incidence of HIV/AIDS among ABET educators and learners in the Lebombo Ward Centres. The researcher aims to recommend ways and means that it is hoped could decrease the alarmingly high death rate of educators and learners in this part of northern KwaZulu-Natal. The painful physical and emotional effects of the virulent HIV/AIDS pandemic, and also the longterm consequences for both individuals and their families, are making many ABET educators' lives extremely complex and difficult. Many ABET Centres are facing teething problems connected to HIV/AIDS because centre managers and tutors do not have sufficient knowledge, skills and resources to be able to cope proactively and resourcefully with the difficulties that confront them. The unabated spread of HIV/AIDS in this particular area (Lebombo) is damaging and ravaging the society and undermining education at large. The researcher also wants to contribute towards a stage being reached, both by the education authorities and by individuals within the society, at which relevant and effective ways and means can be found to understand better the underlying factors that are feeding this scourge, to transmit requisite knowledge more effectively, and to introduce measures that will begin to turn around the tragically high incidence of HIV/AIDS in this area. Further, the researcher will point to, and explore, social issues and social behaviours that are impacting negatively on the spread of HIV/AIDS, such as sexual abuse of schoolgirls by educators, the widespread practising of unprotected sex by educators, the disregard for human rights that this entails, continuing gender-based prejudices, the prevalence of superstition, and the tendency among many people to disregard warnings about HIV/AIDS. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2013.