Policies, Provisions, Skill-Based Health Education, Nutrition

Health-related school policies

Health policies in schools, including skills-based health education and the provision of some health services, can help promote the overall health, hygiene and nutrition of children. But good health policies should go beyond this to ensure a safe and secure physical environment and a positive psycho-social environment, and should address issues such as abuse of students, sexual harassment, school violence, and bullying. By guaranteeing the further education of pregnant school girls and young mothers, school health policies will help promote inclusion and equity in the school environment. Policies that help to prevent and reduce harassment by other students and even by teachers, also help to fight against reasons that girls withdraw or are withdrawn from schools. Policies regarding the health-related practices of teachers and students can reinforce health education: teachers can act as positive role models for their students, for example, by not smoking in school. The process of developing and agreeing upon policies draws attention to these issues. The policies are best developed by involving many levels, including the national level, and teachers, children, and parents at the school level.

Provision of safe water and sanitation - the essential first steps towards a healthy physical, learning environment

The school environment may damage the health and nutritional status of school children, particularly if it increases their exposure to hazards such as infectious disease carried by the water supply. Hygiene education is meaningless without clean water and adequate sanitation facilities. A realistic goal in most countries is to ensure that all schools have access to clean water and sanitation. By providing these facilities, schools can reinforce the health and hygiene messages, and act as an example to both students and the wider community. This in turn can lead to a demand for similar facilities from the community. Sound construction policies will help ensure that facilities address issues such as gender access and privacy. Separate facilities for girls, particularly adolescent girls, are an important contributing factor to reducing dropout at menses and even before. Sound maintenance policies will help ensure the continuing safe use of these facilities.

Skills-based health education

This approach to health, hygiene and nutrition education focuses upon the development of knowledge, attitudes, values, and life skills needed to make and act on the most appropriate and positive health-related decisions. Health in this context extends beyond physical health to include psycho-social and environmental health issues. Changes in social and behavioural factors have given greater prominence to such health-related issues as HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy, injuries, violence and tobacco and substance use. Unhealthy social and behavioural factors not only influence lifestyles, health and nutrition, but also hinder education opportunities for a growing number of school-aged children and adolescents. The development of attitudes related to gender equity and respect between girls and boys, and the development of specific skills, such as dealing with peer pressure, are central to effective skills-based health education and positive psycho-social environments. When individuals have such skills, they are more likely to adopt and sustain a healthy lifestyle during schooling and for the rest of their lives.

School-based health and nutrition services

Schools can effectively deliver some health and nutritional services provided that the services are simple, safe and familiar, and address problems that are prevalent and recognised as important within the community. If these criteria are met then the community sees that teacher and school more positively, and teachers perceive themselves as playing important roles. For example, micronutrient deficiencies and worm infections may be effectively dealt with by infrequent (six-monthly or annual) oral treatment; changing timing of meals or providing a snack to address short term hunger during school - an important constraint on learning; and providing spectacles will allow some children to fully participate in class for the first time.

Students Health Awareness

Conduct the following activity with your students in order to get a sense of their awareness about health:

To begin with ask students to name some of the illnesses they have had. Write these down in a list. Then discuss whether or not all of them are infectious diseases and eliminate those that are not. Now you have a first list for the class.

Make sure all students have a copy of that list. Ask students to go home to their parents and ask about childhood diseases they may have had. Each student should write a list of his or her own. For information, these lists may be compared to other lists such as the diseases mentioned in the disease index.

All the individual lists should then be combined into one single class list.

Repeat exactly the same steps for vaccinations. Student vaccination records and health certificates may be brought in to class for comparison.

In addition to the class list, students might want to try and find out from school or city health officials which vaccines are recommneded for children and adults in their region. (The same can be done for diseases: school or city health officials may be able to let you know if there have been recent epidemics or warnings about a infectious specific disease).

The class now has two lists, a vaccination list and an infectious disease list. At the top of each list, write the name of your school, the grade and the location of the school, starting with the country and then the city. Now post the lists on the health curriculum discussion forum so that students from other parts of the world can see your class lists.

Check to see if others have posted their lists (do this periodically as classes may keep on postiong information). Print the lists out and distribute them to the class. Students can also make comments on each others' lists.

Students should then develop a color code for all the vaccines and infectious diseases mentioned on the various lists.

Then get a map of the world (preferably a large black and white one for the class or copies for each student). Students should then color one or two sheets of paper with each of the colors they chose for their color codes. From the colored sheets they should cut out triangular pieces if it represents a specific vaccine and round pieces if it represents an infectious diseases.

Now the class has everything to begin the final phase of the map. Based on the information contained in the lists downloaded from the discussion forum (location, diseases, vaccines), the class can create a basic epidemiological map by sticking the appropriate color on to the right place on the map.

The map could help you draw certain conclusions or it may raise some questions, such as why the vaccination list in one place is different. In that case, the class can go back to the discussion forum to mention some of the observations or ask questions from other participants.