ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOL HEALTH PROGRAMME IN PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN IKEJA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF LAGOS STATE

School Health Programme in Ikeja

Abstract

Background: The School Health Programme (SHP) is an organized set of policies, procedures, and activities designed to protect and promote the health and well-being of students and staff. There are three major components of SHP: health services conducted at school premises, school health instruction and healthy school environment. This study set out to assess the school health programme (School health services, health education, healthy school environment and feeding services) in private schools in Ikeja Local Government Area (LGA) in Lagos state.

Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study that used the total population of primary and secondary private schools in Ikeja LGA of Lagos State. A school Health Evaluation questionnaire and a checklist were used to collect data from the schools and data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. Each component of SHP was scored and rated good (>50%), fair (40-49%) or poor (< 40%).

Results: A total of 105 schools were involved in the study of which 38 (36.2%) was secondary schools. The personnel used for health services in majority of the schools (71.4%) was a school health educator and routine inspection was the activity mostly carried out by the schools (90.4%). All the schools included health education in their curriculum; topics on HIV/AIDs and mental health were the least covered in 69.5% and 60.9% of schools respectively. About half of the schools (51.4%) was in an area of noise pollution, 62.9% had water running from the faucets, 86.7% had clean toilets and 88.6 % had adequate lightening. Screening of food vendors was carried out by 22.9% of the schools and 56.2% provided mid-day meals.

Conclusion: School Health Programme in private schools in Ikeja LGA is good. However, there is need to provide more robust health services and broaden the scope of health education.