|
For Whose Benefit? The Politics of Developing A Health Education
Curriculum
Issues for implementation
As the recent media discussion on sexuality education has once
again demonstrated, a key issue that bedevils those implementing
health education programmes in schools is that of curriculum delivery.
Health education is a relatively recent arrival in the compulsory
core curriculum in schools. The 1985 health syllabus was made mandatory
in 1990 for new entrants (year 1) to Form 4 (year 10). Colleges
of Education have only included it in their training programmes
in the last 5-10 years. Consequently, there is a shortage of effectively
trained teachers in schools in this curriculum area. When school
health co-ordinators are surveyed to identify their needs, the lack
of trained staff is always high on their list (Tasker, 1992). Furthermore,
earlier perceptions of health education as primarily a body of knowledge,
largely medical in nature, and unfamiliar to teachers because of
its omission from their formal training, have ensured that schools
have traditionally viewed health education as set apart from the
"other" areas of the curriculum. There has also been a lack of a
shared academic tradition amongst health teachers. As a consequence,
many teachers have not seen health education as a legitimate component
of the curriculum and have little sense of content issues, responsibility
for it or ownership of it.
This lack of teacher ownership and responsibility is exacerbated
by the multitude of outside agencies and individuals offering short-term,
single focus packages for covering particular aspects of the health
education curriculum (e.g. drug education, conflict management education,
parenting skills and sexuality education). Whilst some of these
agencies are genuinely seeking to meet student needs, others are
responding to the increasingly competitive economic environment
and operating primarily to take advantage of the educational market-place.
By virtue of its nature, health education addresses uniquely personal
and sensitive issues, the responses to which can often vary according
to cultural background. This requires teaching programmes and strategies
underpinned by sound pedagogical foundations. Single focus packages
do not always have these. In addition to the commercial motive,
some organisations with political and moral agendas seek to influence
the population through the school curriculum. Examples of these
are the vocal and radical conservative Christian communities who
oppose current curriculum content and pedagogical practices in sexuality
education, and the plethora of groups offering drug education from
widely disparate philosophical and theoretical positions.
For schools grappling with education marketisation, the realities
of school site management, lack of adequately trained staff, constant
administrative reform, imperatives to compete for pupils and the
necessity to avoid public controversy of any kind, expediency often
takes precedence over learner needs. The Education Review Office's
(ERO) New Zealand School Sector Report to Parliament (ERO,
1993) stated that only fifty percent of the 213 schools surveyed
were providing a health education curriculum in accordance with
the health syllabus. Three years later their Reproductive and
Sexual Health Education (ERO, 1996) which reviewed the implementation
of sexuality education in schools, revealed a similar pattern.
The practice of outside organisations coming into schools and delivering
single focus lessons or courses militates against schools seeking
appropriately trained and qualified health education teachers to
deliver this area of the school curriculum. It not only takes the
responsibility for health education away from the school but also
works against the development of the broadly based health focused
curriculum models (Jewitt, 1994; Lawson, 1992) which are necessary
for ongoing and comprehensive health education programmes. To be
effective, links must be made across health topics. Skills developed
in one context should be reinforced in others in a co-ordinated
way within the wider health education programme and across other
curriculum areas as well. In addition, many areas may need to be
revisited and followed up within the overall programme, and ongoing
support with health issues must be provided for students by teachers
they trust and who understand their particular needs and concerns.
There is a further underlying issue here related to the professionalism
of teachers. Health education, like all other curriculum areas,
should be taught by trained teachers. All primary teachers need
to be specifically trained in this area, and all secondary schools
need teachers for whom health is an area of curriculum specialisation.
Currently, all colleges of education provide compulsory health education
curriculum development for their primary sector trainees. Colleges
of education also provide courses for their secondary trainees who
wish to teach health, and inservice opportunities for practising
teachers in health education. Expansion of this area of teacher
development is needed to meet the demands of the new curriculum.
It was reassuring to read in the PAG's policy specifications that:
The national curriculum statement in Health and Physical Education
should be designed in such a way as to best encourage the delivery
of programmes by classroom teachers (Ministry of Education, 1995,
p. 7).
In addition, these teachers need to operate in environments where
school structures and processes incorporate policies and practices
which support the health curriculum. For example, classroom programmes
addressing healthy eating will be undermined if the school canteen
does not offer a substantial choice of healthy foods, or if the
school policy is to have soft drink vending machines in the school
environment for the purposes of fund raising. Assertiveness and
conflict resolution programmes and mediation skills courses lose
their credibility as alternatives to bullying and harrassment if
teachers adopt aggressive or sarcastic tactics in their interactions
with students. The overall school environment and actual practices
within the school reveal the true level of commitment the institution
has to the programmes it teaches.
previous /
back to index / next
|
