Contributions of school health education in promoting heal thy lifestyles in Kenya: case studies of primary schools in Nairobi county
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Date
2014
Authors
Kiara, Francis Kirimi
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Abstract
A healthy lifestyle is an enviable ingredient in one's life due to the unending
benefits that it enables one to acquire and enjoy in life. These benefits include
leading a healthy and productive life free from non-communicable lifestyle
diseases such as obesity, hypertension, cancer, heart diseases, overweight and
diabetes which have caused untold suffering to the contemporary society.
Globally, the number of persons with non-communicable lifestyle diseases has
increased dramatically over the past years, making them one of the most
burdensome diseases. National surveys in most parts of Africa indicate that cases
of non-communicable lifestyle diseases are increasing drastically. In Kenya,
health education is included in the school curriculum; further, in the year 2009,
the government launched a national school health policy to enhance the quality of
health in school communities by creating a healthy and child friendly
environment for teaching and learning. Health education on non-communicable
diseases is a potent tool that can provide preventive knowledge and skills to
pupils early in life during formative years. This is critical since through
socialization, habits formed early in life may tend to outlast challenges in later
life. In view of escalating cases of non-communicable lifestyle diseases, there was
need to explore the contributions of the Kenya National School Health Policy and
teaching of health education in promoting healthy lifestyles to enable pupils to be
socialized to acquire good practices to prevent non-communicable diseases. The
study was mainly descriptive. A multiple case study method was used to provide a
detailed study of the schools sampled. Stratified random sampling techniques
were used to select three primary schools study sites in Nairobi County which
were ideal for this study due to their urban and metropolitan location. The target
population was comprised of primary school pupils, teachers, parents, head
teachers, Quality Assurance Education Officers in Nairobi County and curriculum
developers in the Kenya institute of Education. The data collection tools were
content analysis schedule, observation schedule, semi-structured interview guides
and focus group discussions. Data was analyzed qualitatively guided by themes
drawn from research objectives while quantitative data was analyzed using basic
descriptive statistics and presented in pertinent themes. The study findings
showed that there is likelihood of an upward exponential increase in noncommunicable
lifestyle diseases due to various factors that include lack of
implementation of the Kenya National School Health Policy; lack of content
dealing with non-communicable diseases in curriculum; use of teacher-centred
teaching approaches which are theoretical and examination oriented leading to
lack of action-competence; lack of good practices in feeding and physical
exercises as well as socio-cultural beliefs. The study concludes that noncommunicable
diseases are likely to increase exponentially and geometrically
since there are no proactive sustainable strategies to curb them. The government
needs to mobilize the resources via the Ministries concerned to provide leadership
in policies for advocacy, implementation, supervision and close monitoring of
programmes on non-communicable lifestyle diseases.
Description
Department of Educational Foundations