Health begins in school

A RECENT workshop in Islamabad attended by both educators and health professionals unveiled a project entitled School Health Initiative of Pakistan (SHIP), expected to be launched next month. If successfully implemented, SHIP could represent our first concrete effort to promote the health of children and adolescents in public and private schools through an integrated school health service programme. Investing in a national school health programme is tantamount to investing in Pakistan’s future and in the capacity of Pakistanis to thrive economically and as a society. Yet, despite international recognition of the importance of promoting health through prevention in schools, and the adoption of school health programmes in many countries — even before WHO launched the Global School Health Initiative in 1995 — we have been lagging behind in this effort. An attempt was made in the late 1980s and the 1990s to launch a school health services programme. The Seventh Five-Year Plan had recommended that all children have a complete medical check-up when they enter school and a comprehensive quarterly check-up as long as they remain in school. The Eighth Five-Year Plan was in favour of the programme being reoriented towards developing healthy lifestyles among schoolchildren. Neither initiative, however, managed to take off. Even the umbrella approach for the country’s overall social development, the Social Action Plan, did not define a recognisable role for school health services. Although certain public institutions — like special education institutions and cadet colleges — and some private schools had implemented their own school health service, these did not amount to a national strategic plan for school health provision.

Among the reasons behind our failure so far to launch a school health service programme are inadequate vision and acceptance, lack of infrastructure including financial, human and material resources as well as organising mechanisms, and inadequate collaboration and coordination among the ministries and agencies addressing health in schools. For SHIP to succeed where previous initiatives have failed, the programme must be well designed, monitored and evaluated to ensure its successful implementation and its intended outcomes. Equally important is the development of clear-cut policies, guidelines and even legislation on such a school health programme, as well as effective coordination among the relevant ministries, notably the ministries of education and health, participating private and non-governmental health and educational concerns and international donor and support agencies. Without all these, SHIP is unlikely to float notwithstanding its noble objectives.
Courtesy Daily Dawn Lahore