|
Policy Dialogue Influences School Health Promotion
A two-day policy dialogue was held by the Health Action Schools (HAS)
project, based at AKU Institute for Educational Development
(AKU-IED), in January 2001. Co-founders, Dr. Hugh Hawes of
the Child-to-Child movement and Professor Emeritus from the
Institute of Education, London University, and Dr. Tashmin
Kassam-Khamis, Assistant Professor, AKU-IED and the HAS team,
facilitated the programme.
|
|
| Dr. Gordon MacLeod, Acting
Director of AKU-IED, and participants at the two-day policy
dialogue on School Health Promotion. |
The University hosted the seminar with the objective of advocating content
and approaches for health education in schools, based on lessons
learnt from the HAS pilot action research project. This three-year
research project, headed by Dr. Khamis at AKU-IED in partnership
with Save the Children (UK), aims to develop health promoting
schools in Pakistan and to influence policy on health education
in the national schools. Participants' feedback showed that
this first Policy Dialogue was a great success, evidenced
also by the high attendance. Participants included representatives
from the federal and provincial ministries of Education and
Health, including the Head of the Curriculum Bureau, INGOs
(International Non-Governmental Organisations) and NGOs working
with children in health and education, including UNICEF, WHO,
EC and Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). More than
50 people attended the two days of the dialogue and some 100
participated in the session.
The dialogue culminated in the book launch of the Urdu adaptation of the
Child-to-Child health education activity sheets for teachers
and health workers - Sehat-ki-Batein - in the newly established
Primary Education and Child-to-Child Resource Centre at AKU-IED.
Over 200 copies of the book were distributed free of cost
to all the participants, who also enjoyed the performance
and displays by children from the Health Action Pilot Schools.
The outcome of the dialogue will be a policy report on content and approaches
for health education in schools based on the seminar recommendations,
which will be disseminated to policy makers at the provincial
and federal levels.
more pictures
|
