Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy has called on African leaders to join a global campaign to abolish all education fees and other costs for primary school-age children.

The campaign is part of a broader UNICEF effort to place education at the top of the world's HIV/AIDS-fighting agenda.

Bellamy said that removing school fees would place education at the fore-f ront of the fight against the incurable disease.

"We live in a world where children whose families cannot pay for tuition, uniforms, desks, pencils, books and building repairs are shut out of classrooms," Bellamy told the African Development Forum.

"And yet we also live in a world that ratified the Convention on the Right s of the Child a decade ago, a world that recognised free and compulsory education as the right of every child. Governments have both a legal and a moral responsibility to fulfil that obligation," she added.

Noting the theme of the African Development Forum 2000, HIV/AIDS: The Grea test Leadership Challenge, Bellamy said that educating all children requires strong leadership from African nations and the international community.

She stressed that if just one child in a resource-poor country is deprived

of schooling, everyone - - the state, donor nations and the family -- must be held accountable.

Placing every child in a classroom has never been more urgent than it is t oday, Bellamy declared.

According to her, as the AIDS pandemic intensifies, children must be able to turn to schools as places of learning, inclusion, stability and life-saving information about HIV/AIDS. No child should be barred entry.

Children left parentless or impoverished by HIV/AIDS are least likely to a ttend school. Surveys conducted by UNICEF in 15 African countries showed an average gap in enrolment rates of 19 percent between children orphaned by AIDS and those with at least one living parent.

Bellamy acknowledged that funding for public education across Africa is in adequate, and that local schools are forced to turn to families for financial support.

She said that the campaign to abolish school fees and related charges woul d lift that burden from children and their families and place it where it belongs.

There is no shortage of money to ensure every child's right to a free basi c education, Bellamy stressed.

According to her, national governments can and should re-allocate budgets to strengthen the education sector.

She urged the international community to relieve the debt that siphons res ources from schools, and appealed to donors to make good on their commitment to increase Official Development Assistance to 0.7 percent of GDP.