HEALTH KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES OF TEACHERS IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS TRAINING COLLEGES IN IBADAN

Abstract

School Health Education in Nigeria is currently facing identity crisis. Its teaching is at present carried out at all levels of the educational system as an appendage to other subjects, particularly physical education in the teacher training colleges. As of now curriculum planning, provision of teaching resources and other learning experiences as well as evaluation mechanism in health education have not been given adequate attention. The need to reexamine and improve the status of health education as an academic discipline in our education institutions stimulated this study. The Focus was an assessment of the health knowledge, attitudes and practices of teachers in selected primary schools and teacher training colleges in Ibadan city of Oyo State, Nigeria, as a basis for suggesting a strategy for improved health education curriculum in teacher training institutions. The literature review showed a universal recognition of the importance of health education as part of formal education and to formalise its inclusion in the school curriculum. A representative example of 507 class teachers and 63 head teachers at both the primary schools and teacher training colleges was interviewed using two sets of questionnaires. The First set of Questionnaire contained variables on health knowledge, attitudes and practices, the second focused on policy matters such as how much time and resources

should be allocated to the teaching of school health education in the school curriculum. The school health syllabuses at different levels of the educational system in Nigeria were reviewed. The findings showed that health education was accorded low status in comparison with other school subjects. Among the teachers studied, significant and positive association were found between education qualifications/training and health knowledge; the higher the level of educational qualifications/training of a teacher, the greater the teacher’s health knowledge. Also association was found between the length of teaching experience and the teacher’s attitudes towards the teaching of some school health topics. Teachers with larger years of teaching experiences showed better attitudes towards the inclusion of some health topics in the school curriculum. Observations were carried out in the schools selected for the study to examine the general practice of healthful school environment as a reflection of the teacher’s health attitudes and practices. Finally, it was found that the present teaching of health education with physical education was generally with a bias to physical education in terms of content coverage, time allocation provision of teaching resources and learning experiences.