SCHOOL HEALTH PROGRAM

Health Education at the Primary, High School and Plus Two level is essential to enhance the quality of life of our children. They could stimulate community action in villages/towns for the promotion of sound health and environment practices in the families and in the communities. The NCERT insists that 8% of the school hours should be set aside for physical and health education. Health and Environment Education can help the school children to know how to give First-aid, to be aware of a balanced diet, about water borne and contagious diseases and how to prevent them. It will also provide knowledge on self-hygiene, environmental cleanliness, promotion of nurseries, eco-friendly programmes and soon.

Importance

School is one of the most important and effective sectors to promote `Primary Health’ and `Primary Health Education’. The School going children as a cohesive group occupies an environment that lends itself to a lot of planned and supervised health activities.

School age is a period in life when the child is eager to learn and is extremely curious. The school child still not been grossly affected by some of the fixed concepts and ideal of the adult world. Keeping these advantages in mind, a school health programme provides a excellent vehicle to achieve the goal of positive health for the children.

Children in the schools become recipients of the Health Education and later they themselves become agents/transmitters of the same on a wider circle, their family, community and so on.

In India, 36% of the population are children. The Catholic Church runs 7319 Primary Schools and 3765 Secondary Schools and 240 Colleges. In the Secondary Schools alone the total number of students is 17,89,104. (Catholic Directory of India, 2000 Edition, p.49). If we concentrate on the Health Education Strategy on the Secondary Schools alone, it would be a great service to the Indian Society. It is in this context School Health Education finds its primary relevance.