THE NATIONAL SCHOOL HEALTH POLICY PROBLEMS OF IMPLEMENTATION AND WAY FORWARD

Abstract

Promoting the health of the young population is the priority of any development oriented nation. The school health promotion has been identified by global health bodies as the most effective way of achieving this aim. Nigeria keyed into the health promoting school concept of the World Health Organisation with the launching of the National School Health Policy and its Implementation Guidelines in 2006. However, a yawning gap appears to exist between the policy implementation guidelines and actual implementation as indicated by the fact that the problems that necessitated the policy development still exist. The paper highlighted some of the problems associated with implementation of the National School Health Policy. Some factors identified as necessitating implementation gap in policies were discussed including less stable political systems; lack of political leadership; failure to calculate cost implications; lack of statistics and research data; lack of monitoring/supervision and evaluation; and lack of capacity among others. The paper identified and discussed some way forward for bridging the implementation gap in the National School Health Policy, such as conducting periodic researches, establishing means of helping local schools implement the school health programme, developing a sound professional development plan among others.