Promoting health through schools report of a WHO Expert Com­mittee on Comprehensive School Health Education and Promotion: WHO Technical Report Series N°870

Overview

To encourage educational and health institutions and agencies to coordinate their efforts to promote health through schools, WHO convened an Expert Committee on Comprehensive School Health Education and Promotion in Geneva, Switzerland, from 18 to 22 September 1995. The meeting was opened on behalf of the Director­General by Dr N. P. Napalkov, Assistant Director-General, who stressed the importance of schools as a means of influencing the health and education of future generations.

The overall objective of the Expert Committee was to make recom­mendations for policy measures and actions that WHO (including its Regional Offices), other United Nations agencies, national govern­ments, and nongovernmental organizations could apply to enable schools to use their full potential to improve the health of children and young people, school staff. families, and community members.

The Expert Committee noted that the past 50 years have brought unprecedented gains in health, education, and economic status: ad­vances in average life expectancy: reductions in child death rates; and improved nutrition programmes, immunization levels, disease pre­vention, and school attendance around the world. Because of these advances, about 2.5 million fewer children will die in 1996 than in 1990. As more children survive to school age, the number attend­ing school, in at least the early levels/ has increased dramatically as well. In many nations there has been progress in achieving the goal of basic education for all. The proportion of the developing world's children now completing at least 4 years of primary schooling has reached 71 % overall. Moreover, a recent report concludes that "the formal education system is ... the developing world's broadest and deepest channel for putting information at the disposal of its citizens". 

RELATED DOCUMENTS:

• Fomento de la salud a través de la escuela : informe de un Comité de Expertos de la OMS en Educación Sanitaria y Fomento de la Salud Integrales en las Escuelas 
• L' Ecole et son rôle dans l' éducation sanitaire et la promotion de la santé en général : rapport d' un Comité OMS d' experts sur le rôle de l' école dans l' éducation sanitaire et la promotion de la santé en général
• Chinese