The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : To take children forward, health too counts, as does education teaching & learning

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Wednesday, Jul 09, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

To take children forward, health too counts, as does education teaching & learning

Sarah Hiddleston

All schools are supposed to issue health cards to students

If education is about more than books, then securing children’s health could be said to be one of its most important functions. Though education and health departments are making some important strides to ensure these life lessons do reach children, some policies are not yet effective because of implementation problems.

Most schools are receiving a once yearly visit from medical practitioners conducting physical check ups, which have until now been funded by a collection of Re.1 from students. But, according to officials in the Medical Section of the Directorate of School Education, this is currently in limbo this year — a government order was issued to stop collecting money from students but proposals to finance this are still pending before the government.

Heads of one government and several Corporation schools highlighted poor diet of children as the most common health concern and some said they were weak or sleeping in class. None of the teachers knew that the State Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had dedicated Thursday as School Health Day, though some were implementing programmes around World AIDS Day. Similarly no teachers had been identified to coordinate health in schools and interact with doctors, nor received training sessions in how to identify common ailments. These measures were detailed in the policy note of the Health department for 2008-09.

An official of the School Education department said a dedicated weekly session tackling issues such as consumer health, personal hygiene, drug abuse, nutrition, vitamin deficiency and HIV awareness had been included in the school curriculum. On top of this, students in classes 9 and 11 are supposed to receive over 16 hours of life skills education.

Curriculum heavily loaded

Some teachers said the curriculum was already heavily loaded and that games sessions had to be combined with health classes. This meant less time on doing physical activity and less time on health learning.

From this academic year all schools are supposed to issue their students with health cards. The Central Board of Secondary Education has issued a circular to all schools to that effect, along with instructions to set up school health clubs to conduct informal activities such as poster competitions and singsongs.

UNICEF technical specialist (HIV/AIDS) Devashish Dutta stressed that the methods to deliver heath messages was as important as the content.

Participatory activities

The challenge, he said, was how to include participatory activities in class and enable teachers to convert answers to questions that might appear lewd into informative science-based points without embarrassment.

Awareness does appear to be improving in some areas. Adolescent health specialist Yamuna said that her clinic was receiving young patients who were concerned about their body based on what they had learned in classes, including issues such as menstruation.

Paediatrician and adolescent health physician Priya Chandrasekaran said that awareness of personal hygiene was generally better. But both doctors remarked on the continuing poor nutritional status of school children and the need for schools to lead by example.

Children, they said, were getting less of the right kinds of food and, in some cases, too much of the wrong kinds of calories from fast foods such as salted chips, which lead to high blood pressure, attention deficit and increasing incidence of liver disease in adolescence. The absence of vitamin D, which our body manufactures through exposure to sunlight was another growing problem, which indicated games sessions were being compromised in favour of academics, Dr. Yamuna said.

“Health information is mandatory because it is the right of any child to know about themselves and maintain their bodies safely,” said Dr.Yamuna. Good health practices boost children’s performance in schools, she said.

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