EVALUATION OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICES AMONG TEACHERS IN PUBLIC SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

School Health Services (SHS) enables the school children benefit maximally from the school by ensuring that their health is well taken care of while in school. The objective of the study was to assess the implementation status of (SHS) among teachers in public Senior Secondary Schools in Kaduna State. The population for the study consisted of 7,159 teachers out of which 1,170 teachers were sampled for the study.  A structured questionnaire with a reliability value of 0.742 was used.  Descriptive statistics of frequency, percentage, and mean score were employed, while the hypotheses were tested using the Z-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 alpha level. The results showed that School health services were available in 62.3% of the schools while 84.1% of them had first aid boxes but these were not adequately equipped. Thus results revealed that health care services in schools were grossly inadequate. It was therefore concluded that the level of implementation of SHS in Kaduna State was very low due lack of government commitment. Hence it was recommendation that Kaduna State Government should urgently revisit the health care delivery in Public Senior Secondary Schools in Kaduna State and also provide adequate health services to enable school children spend quality time in school.