Keep the environment clean to prevent communicable diseases-Urges Bannerman-Mensah(13/4/09)

THE Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, has reiterated the need for Ghanaians to keep their environment clean to prevent schoolchildren from contracting communicable diseases like cholera, dysentery and typhoid.
“These diseases can affect the education of the pupil, thus reducing teacher-pupil contact hours required for effective teaching and learning process for quality education,” he said.
He said this in an address read on his behalf at the awards ceremony of the Healthy School Environment competition organised by the School Health Education Programme (SHEP) in Accra.
Mr Bannerman-Mensah said these communicable diseases could be prevented through the observance of simple personal hygiene and environmental sanitation.
He lauded the initiative of the school health education programme, which was established to provide preventive, protective and health promotion strategies to reduce factors that militate against school attendance and academic performance of pupils.
"The programme promotes strategies to complement current efforts being made by the government and civil society to find solutions to the current environmental sanitation and waste management challenges facing the country," he observed.
The Director-General noted that the GES, through a DANIDA project, had benefited from the construction of 1,907 latrines and the provision of water, hand-washing facilities and sanitation manuals to ensure the reinforcement of the campaign for maintaining good sanitation in schools.
He said the new health enhancing programmes like effective hand-washing with soap and good sanitation learned and practised in schools and at home could lead to the development of life-long positive health needed to sustain the sanitation crusade.
"The GES supports the view that provision of safe water and sanitation facilities is a first step towards a healthy and physical learning environment," he added.
Mr Bannerman-Mensah called on stakeholders in the education sector to ensure that school water and sanitation facilities were properly maintained.
He advised communities to construct their own toilets, urinals and refuse dumps, and stop vandalising and abusing such facilities provided in the schools.
He said it was unfair for schoolchildren to clear adult human excreta and other waste produced by drug addicts in their classrooms, adding that "communities should also stop encroaching on school lands meant for gardening and sports because those lands are not being wasted".
He said the lands were useful for implementing portions of the school curriculum needed for the development of the children.
He commended the participating schools and urged them to carry on with the sanitation campaign to ensure a healthy and good sanitation for learning.
For her part, the Health Information and Promotion Officer at the Word Health Organisation, Ms Sophia Twum-Barima, pointed out that children should be equipped with the skills needed to promote good health.
"Health education in schools must become more comprehensive if children are to be empowered to pursue a healthy lifestyle and to work as agents of change," she said.
Ms Twum-Barima said effective school health programme was the most cost-effective investments a nation could make to improve upon education and health.
"It is important the education ministry gets schoolchildren to engage in such activities to promote their physical and psychological well-being," she said.
The National SHEP Co-ordinator, Mrs Ellen B. Mensah, said the programme sought to achieve healthy lifestyles for the pupils by developing and supporting conducive environments for the promotion of good health.
"The SHEP is to create a well-informed and healthy school population equipped with life skills to maintain healthy habits, attitudes and behaviour to achieve educational goals," she added.
Schools that participated in the competition included the Prussic Staff Basic School, University Primary, Faith Montessori School, Samsam Presby Primary School, St Stephen RC Basic School and Dodowa Primary School.The rest were Doblo Gonno Community Basic School, Services Basic School, Ayikuma R C Basic School and the Kinder Paradise Basic School.
At the end of the programme, awards were given to the participating schools which excelled in the competition. They were given certificates of participation, books, wheelbarrows, drinking buckets and hand-washing bowls.