Health Awareness of Student teachers At Secondary Level- A Survey
Introduction
For the lasting progress of a nation, education is the most potent instrument. To add zest to life and to produce vigorous, self-reliant, courageous, and public-spirited citizens we should have a scientifically planned and well-implemented educational programme. To have a sound mind we should have a sound body. To maintain a well-balanced mental and physical health, Government puts forward programmes to promote health education.
Health and Health Education Programmes
“Perfect health is an ideal to be aimed at, even if we can never hope to attain it” (Bond, 1953). The process of persuading people to accept measures that will improve their health and to reject those, which will have an adverse effect, is called ‘health education’. Health education should have an access to as broad a section of the community as possible if it is to be successful to parents, children, adolescents, teachers, employees and employers and indeed, every section of the society (Davies 1979).
Health education helps people make wise and working choices not only about the personal health, but also the quality of life of their community. The International Conference on Public Education in Geneva in 1967 in which the United States and 96 other countries participated, recommended that in the planning of the school programme of each country ‘health education’ should be given a place among its fundamental objectives,’ that it should ‘not only inculcate good habits in pupils’ but also teach them ‘respect the health and well being of other people as well as their own,’ and that ‘teachers should be prepared to give health education during their training courses.’
School administrators, teachers and the general public do pay more attention to the concept that the ‘whole child’ goes to school and that it is the task of the educator to develop each student to his highest potential, physically, emotionally, socially as well as intellectually. The main task of education is leading students to a happier, healthier and more productive life for the present as well as for the future. Thus the primary responsibility for the health of the child is shared by the school and the community. As an educational agency, the school does not have the responsibility for providing medical care but it can encourage the parents to make use of medical or clinical services.
Thus the teacher has to play a major role in implementing the policies and schemes formulated to achieve a breakthrough in the quantitative expansion and qualitative improvement of education; which is highly essential for the national development. In fact the quality of teachers depends upon the training they receive during their pre service teacher training course. In other words the quality of teachers largely depends upon the education programme, selection procedure followed for the admission of trainees, instructional materials and evaluation of their performance. The best and the only way to ensure such quality of education in India is by developing professionalism in teaching.
Health education is highly essential for the community and the best and easiest way to educate a community is to educate its future citizens –children. To educate the children, first of all, the teacher should be well versed in the various aspects of health education. It caters the teacher to understand the pupils better. Envisaging the importance of health education in secondary level teacher education programme, the investigator has designed the present study with an objective of finding out the health awareness of student teachers at secondary level.
Objectives of the Study
1. To understand the facilities given and the activities conducted in Teacher Education Colleges for developing health awareness among student teachers.
2. To understand the health awareness of student teachers at secondary level.
Hypotheses for the Study
1. The facilities given and activities conducted in Teacher Education Colleges for developing health awareness are very limited.
2. The student teachers at secondary level have low awareness regarding various health science aspects.
Methodology
Survey method was found to be appropriate for the present study.
Tools used
1. Interview Schedule for teacher educators
2. Interview Schedule for student teachers
3. Health Awareness Test
Sample for the Survey
For the present study, the survey was confined to a sample of 1600 student teachers at secondary level and 21 Teacher Educators who take health education classes. Proportionate Random sampling was adopted in selecting the sample for the study. The student teachers selected were from the 4 Districts of Kerala under Mahatma Gandhi University.
Procedure adopted
At first the investigator analysed the present secondary level teacher education curriculum with regard to different health education aspects. On analysis of the content, it is observed that the main health science aspects like first aid, communicable diseases, food and nutrition, health and hygiene, health examination and health service, effect of exercise on systems of the body are included in the pedagogical theory of secondary level teacher education curriculum. Based on this and other socially relevant areas, a Health Awareness Test was prepared.
Relevant data were collected from the subjects under study, using adequate tools and techniques like Interview Schedule and Standardised Health Awareness Test. Opinion and views of 21 teacher educators and 220 student teachers about the availability of infrastructural facilities and instructional resources related to health education curriculum in Teacher Education Colleges were collected by conducting personal interview with them. Then the Standardised Health Awareness Test was administered to measure the awareness of student teachers on various health science aspects. The data collected thus were analysed.
Percentage statistics was used for comparing the health awareness of student teachers in various optional subjects at secondary level.
Major Findings
The important findings that have emerged from the study are:
1. The views and opinion of teacher educators revealed that the facilities present and the activities conducted for developing health awareness were limited in majority of the teacher education colleges.
a. Opinions of teacher educators (80%) revealed that the present health education syllabus in the B.Ed. curriculum was not satisfactory. Many teacher educators (60%) were of the opinion that the syllabus lack proper explanations regarding the details about the important points to be stressed and extent of explanations given for each area.
b. A good number of teacher educators (60%) pointed out the inadequacies in facilities such as library books, journals & periodicals, A-V aids like charts, models, films, transparencies and first aid kit. Half (50%) of teacher educators felt lack of time as an obstacle in adopting demonstration classes, which is a must in area like first aid.
c. Only 30% of the teacher educators arranged experts’ classes in their institution in the areas of personal hygiene, communicable diseases, exercises like Yoga, child care and healthy life style in order to avoid life style diseases.
d. A good majority of the teacher educators (90%) reported that only one period was allotted for health education syllabus in a week, which was not sufficient for the effective teaching of the specified content.
2. The majority of the student teachers (80%) reported that the one period that was allotted for health education in a week was utilized for dictating the content for the record work. Only (10%) few sample reported that this period was actually used for taking classes on topics of health education.
3. It was found out that majority of the student teachers under study had low health awareness (99.4%). Only a very few student teachers (0.6%) under study had medium awareness and none of them had high health awareness.
4. The study found out, those student teachers in all optional subjects like English, Hindi, Malayalam, Mathematics, Physical Science, Social Science and Commerce showed low health awareness (100%) except Natural Science (96.7%). Only a negligible percentage of Natural science students showed medium awareness (3.3%) and none showed high health awareness.
Reference
1. Davis, J.B.M. (1979). Community Health: Preventive Medicine and Social Service. London: Cassell Ltd.
2. Bond, Betty W. (1953). The Book of popular science. New York: The Book of Knowledge, p.73.
3. Smith, L. (1995). Sociological studies. London: Routledge.
4. Girdano (1985). Experiencing Health. Inc. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
5. Park, K. (1997). Parks Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine. M/s Banarsidas Bhanot 1167, Prem Nagar, Nagpur Road, Jabalpur 482001(India).
6. Report of the National Cancer Registry Programme. New Delhi: Indian Council of Medical Research (1992), p. 53.
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