Exploring the status of the School Health and Nutrition Programme in government-ddministered schools in Lusaka District, Zambia

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY: Introduction: School Health and Nutrition (SHN) programmes are implemented in schools with the objective to improve school children's health and nutritional status. Ensuring the good health of school children leads to reduced absenteeism, improved classroom performance and reduced early school dropout rates. Currently the status of implementation of the SHN programme in schools in Zambia is not known. Aim: To explore the implementation of the School Health and Nutrition (SHN) programme in government-administered schools in Lusaka District in Zambia, from the SHN coordinators' perspective.Methodology: A descriptive, cross sectional study design was used. The study population was the SHN programme coordinators (N=40) in government-administered primary schools in Lusaka District. Forty primary schools in Lusaka District were grouped into two strata, urban (n=16) and peri-urban (n=24) using probability proportion to size sampling. A self-administered questionnaire, based on the SHN programme in Zambia, was used as data-collection tool. Quantitative data analysis was done using Microsoft Excel and Stata. Qualitative data obtained from open-ended questions was analysed using content analysis and identifying major themes.Results: The study revealed that the majority of the participants (n= 25) received initial SHN programme training from the Ministry of Education (MOE) for one week, between 2004 and 2009. Twenty three schools (57.5%) indicated that they were not implementing the SHN programme. A comparison done on SHN implementation between urban and peri-urban schools, showed no significant difference (p=0.601). The SHN activities implemented in the schools resort under the domain of health and nutrition related activities. The schools also implement health and nutrition education, SHN record keeping and life skills activities, but none of the schools mentioned offering guidance and counselling services. The schools reported not receiving enough funds and materials from the MOE and a lack of consistency in following up on the implementation of the programme in the schools by the MOE as the main challenges and reasons for non-implementation of the SHN programme. There have been some positive outcomes from the programme, which include improvement in attendance and the pass rate of the school children. A reduction in the number of children suffering from ailments like diarrhoea and bilharzia were also reported.Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that there are a large number of schools not implementing the SHN programme. The schools implementing the SHN programme are not implementing all the required activities mainly due to lack of funds and resources. The MOE should re-evaluate the SHN programme and ensure that all schools in Lusaka District are implementing the programme with all its activities, especially since positive results were observed when the programme is active.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University