Students’ ill-health causes 52% absenteeism: school health program awaiting proper implementation

LAHORE: Gov­ern­ment should declare emer­gency in school health sec­tor to get pos­i­tive results from School Health Pro­gram (SHP). These views were expressed by health-edu­ca­tion experts in a sem­i­nar titled “Evi­dence Gen­er­a­tion and Advo­ca­cy for Insti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion of School Health Pro­gramme (SHP) in the Pun­jab,” organ­ised by Nur Cen­tre for Research and Pol­i­cy (NCRP), on Thurs­day.

The NCRP con­duct­ed a sur­vey in 38 schools of 8 dis­tricts to assess the impact of the gov­ern­ment’ recent SHPs on stu­dents’ health, nutri­tion lit­er­a­cy and prac­tices, and doc­u­ment­ed the prospects of imple­men­ta­tion. Nur Foun­da­tion came togeth­er with the Health and Edu­ca­tion Depart­ments’ author­i­ties and stake­hold­ers in these dis­tricts with objec­tive of school health and nutri­tion sit­u­a­tion analy­sis in Pun­jab and bar­ri­ers to insti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion of SHP.

Accord­ing to find­ings, it is observed that 52% of girls and 42% of boys are absent from school due to ill-health.
Most­ly select­ed schools have no prop­er facil­i­ties of clean drink­ing water, san­i­tary wash­rooms and no first aid arrange­ments. Par­ents and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are gen­er­al­ly unaware of the cur­rent­ly ongo­ing SHPs because they are not involved in any capac­i­ty. Find­ing shows; fever, headaches, ear­aches, toothaches, and stom­ach prob­lems were com­mon rea­sons for absen­teeism, 20% girls and 22% boys had intesti­nal worm infec­tion, low weight for age was found in 7% girls and 17% boys, inad­e­quate drink­ing water arrange­ments in 31% and 41% boys’ schools, san­i­tary latrines absent from 27% girls’ and 22% boys’ school, no libraries in 50% girls’ and 41 % boys’ schools, aware­ness about ongo­ing SHP among prin­ci­pals and teach­ers is lim­it­ed and they feel quite detached from the pro­gramme being imple­ment­ed by the health sec­tor.

The NCRP’s dis­sem­i­na­tion sem­i­nar act­ed as a forum to review and share the find­ings and chal­lenges con­fronting Pak­istan in improv­ing the health and nutri­tion­al sta­tus of school going chil­dren.

The sem­i­nar was chaired by Advi­sor to Chief Min­is­ter Pun­jab on Health Khawa­ja Salman Rafiq, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary on Health Khawa­ja Imran Nazir, Mem­ber Stand­ing com­mit­tee for Health Pun­jab Mah­wish Sul­tan, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary for Edu­ca­tion Pun­jab, and MPAs Dr. Muraad Rass, Rana Munawar, Hus­sain Ghos Khan and DG Health Pun­jab, Dr. Zahid Per­vaiz among oth­ers. The sem­i­nar had rep­re­sen­ta­tion from key offi­cials from the gov­ern­ment as well as the pri­vate sec­tor includ­ing NGOs/INGOs like UNICEF, UNCHR, WHO and cor­po­rate social rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

While address­ing sem­i­nar, Advi­sor to Chief Min­is­ter Pun­jab on Health Khawa­ja Salman Rafiq said that gov­ern­ment launched SHP in 33 dis­tricts to address the health, hygiene and nutri­tion issues faced by chil­dren at gov­ern­ment schools. Pres­i­dent, Nur Foun­da­tion Shahi­ma Rehman said, “We are all Pak­istan and are head­ing towards a health cri­sis that needs to be addressed now. These chil­dren are our future and their health should be a pri­or­i­ty. Health impacts edu­ca­tion and with­out edu­ca­tion, our coun­try can­not get out of this vicious cycle of pover­ty and increase its glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness as well as pro­mote human and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment.”

CEO of Nur Foun­da­tion Dr. Haroon, stat­ed, “Togeth­er we must sit down and dis­cuss on how to car­ry things for­ward beyond research for imple­men­ta­tion.” The study on SHP was under­tak­en with the aim to gen­er­ate evi­dence to advo­cate the insti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion of the School Health Pro­gramme (SHP) in the Edu­ca­tion Sys­tem in Pun­jab, for enhanc­ing edu­ca­tion out­comes and pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in Pun­jab.

Talk­ing about the pro­gramme Saba Sheikh said, “The bur­den needs to be shared between Edu­ca­tion and Health. How do we have an impact? We need to have sound advo­ca­cy strat­e­gy in mind to con­vince pol­i­cy mak­ers and to have a prac­ti­cal impact. We need to act as watch­dog when the pro­gramme is being imple­ment­ed. You all are stake­hold­ers and we need your sup­port to advo­cate the insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion of the School Health Pro­gramme (SHP).”