Schools and health: a district-level evaluation of school health education in Ghana

Abstract

This study evaluated Ghana's school health education programme, policy guidelines, curriculum topics and evaluation methods at the district level. A modified version of the Health Education District Questionnaire, a self-administered instrument developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was used to collect data from the country's 110 district school health education programme co-ordinators. The response rate was 80 per cent. Information was also gathered through in-depth interviews with the national co-ordinator and her staff and by reviewing programme documents. The results indicated that the programme is focused on building life skills by using participatory teaching methods. However, although the programme guidelines require the use of two strategies-the unit course approach and the integrated/infusion approach-fully to cover health topics within the curriculum, the extent of actual coverage of the topics as reported by the district co-ordinators varied (ranging from 52.3 per cent for consumer health to 98.9 per cent for personal hygiene). In addition, less than 40 per cent of the co-ordinators reported having conducted any formal or informal evaluation of key aspects of the programme at the district level. The findings of this study have implications for Ghana's school health education programme. These are discussed, along with some recommendations. African Journal of Social Work Vol.18(2) 2003: 105-120