School health (FRESH)
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Good health is essential for success in the classroom -and vice versa. Sick, weak or malnourished children perform less well at school than healthy, well-fed ones, and education plays an important part in improving pupils 'health and nutrition.

With the expansion of education in most countries, more children are attending school the ideal place where health and education authorities can work together to improve and maintain child health and nourishment, keep at bay nutritional deficiencies or parasitic infections, and correct poor eyesight and hearing. Good health for pupils means higher school enrolment and attendance, and optimizes governments 'investment in education.

Health programmes also lead to greater social equity -the children who benefit most from them include the disadvantaged, such as girls, the disabled or the rural poor. An inter-agency initiative called FRESH (Focusing Resources for Effective School Health) was launched at the World Education Forum to draw renewed attention to the links between health and education and raise awareness among ministers and other policy- makers of the importance of a comprehensive and effective school health programme as part of the EFA strategy.

What does FRESH advocate?

Its four-point plan comprises:

- Health-related school policies: to make schools safer, for example by eliminating sexual harassment, violence and bullying, and promoting inclusion by guaranteeing further education of pregnant schoolgirls and young mothers;

- Provision of safe water and sanitation: to prevent the spread of infectious disease and provide a healthy, safe and secure school environment and to act as an example for students and the wider community;

- Skills-based health education: extending beyond physical health to include psycho-social and environmental health issues, to develop pupils 'knowledge, attitudes, values and lifestyles that will lead to good health -for example to p event the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies ,injuries, violence and drug abuse;

- School-based health and nutrition services: providing food supplements, deworming or spectacles can improve school performance.

What concrete actions are taking place?

Initiatives are mushrooming in many regions. Partners are providing financial support for FRESH projects in schools in fourteen African countries. Drug education in Viet Nam, in-service teacher training in Saudi Arabia and water and sanitation programmes in Burkina Faso, Colombia, Nicaragua, Nepal and Zambia are other projects.

Regional meetings and capacity-building workshops have been held in East Asia and the Pacific, and Health Promoting Schools networks a e active in furthering comprehesive approaches to school health in Central and Eastern Europe and in Latin America and the Caribbean.

While all countries are called on to include school health in their EFA action plans, those belonging to WHO 's Mega-Country Health Promotion Network and UNESCO 's E9 initiative have become active participants in FRESH. They are Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan ,Russian Federation and the United States. All have more than 100 million inhabitants and together they comprise over three-fifths of the world 's population.

In July 2001 representatives from the education and health ministries of these most populous nations endorsed FRESH and committed themselves to promoting such actions as establishing school health co-ordinating bodies within their education ministries to be responsible for EFA links and follow-up, and sharing in health ministry initiatives concerning school health.

FRESH partners

UNESCO www.unesco.org
UNICEF www.unicef.org
World Bank www.worldbank.org
World Health Organisation (WHO) www.who.int
UNAIDS www.unaids.org
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization)www.fao.org
WFP (World Food Programme)www.wfp.org
Global Pa tnership to Roll Back Malaria www.rbm.who.int/
Education International www.ei-ie.org