Appraisal of the Perceptions of Teachers on the Implementation of School Health Services in Private and Public Secondary Schools in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Abstract

Aims: The purpose of this paper is to appraise the perceptions of teachers on the implementation of school health services in Private and Public Secondary Schools in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Background: Health is an essential commodity that every living human bargain for and is the prerequisite determinant of our overall achievements be it academic, social, economic and political dimesions. Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive design was employed to appraise the perceptions of teachers on the implementation of school health services in private and public secondary schools in Ebonyi state. Using the multistage sampling technique a total of 160 teachers who consented to participate in the study were enrolled. A self-developed questionnaire titled: Appraisal of the Perceptions of Teachers on the Implementation of School Health Service (APTISHS) was used for data collection. Results: The findings revealed that the perceptions of teachers on the implementation of school health services in private and public secondary schools in Ebonyi state were generally poor with the Mean score 2 and 2.2 respectively. However, despite the low perception on the implementation, private schools were more favoured than public schools in areas like: Availability of personnel (P-value: 0.00); Health records (P-value: 0.00), Quality of first aid box (P-value: 0.01). Conclusion: While efforts are made to revamp school health services in all schools, a heightened attention should be given to public schools. For an effective implementation of the school health services government should set up an implementation and evaluation committee or monitoring team. The team should composed of stakeholders from both ministries of Education and Health, school managements in both public and private including their association bodies, parent association and the communities hosting the schools. This body will facilitate issues to be agreed upon and enforcement more realistic.