While 87% of children globally now attend and complete primary education, more robust education for health and well-being for children aged 5-12 is needed. Globally, between 35% and 65% of girls do not have adequate knowledge or understanding of menstruation when they start their menstrual cycle. The East and Southern Africa region has one of the world’s highest rates of adolescent pregnancy with 1 in 5 girls becoming pregnant before the age of 20. HIV also remains a challenge in the region with 930,000 children aged 0 to 14 living with HIV, and 58,000 new yearly infections among children in the same age group.
To spotlight children’s health and well-being from primary education and beyond, UNESCO launched a global initiative entitled Building strong foundations and under that banner, jointly with UNICEF, a set of briefs . With many more children now in primary school, learning about health and well-being at an early age is an opportunity to build strong foundations for every child’s education outcomes, health and in turn, their futures.
Building brighter futures
Royce teaches learners aged between 10-14 (in grade six) in a government school in the Zambian capital, Lusaka. Inspired into the profession by her own grade one teacher, she believes that setting up foundations on health can benefit learners on their journey to adulthood, and the whole community.
‘Receiving foundational education in health and well-being is an advantage for the children in my school’, says Royce. ‘It enables them to make well-informed decisions from an early age and carry this mindset through to adulthood.’
Royce encourages learners in her class to be curious and to ask questions about whether something is aiding or harming them – this could be around nutrition, health and relationships within the community or at home, as well as between peers. She ensures all learners, wherever they may come from, feel safe at school and can always confide in her or other teachers. Her mission is to make children feel and know that they each have a bright future ahead of them.
‘It helps the whole community too. If a child learns about nutrition, they can advise their parents about nutritional values and will be able to say, “today we have eaten these. We are getting these nutrients from this kind of food to make us strong”.’
Safeguarding children’s well-being and safety
Royce also advocates for teachers to invest time in getting to know each learner as individuals. This means building an understanding of the child’s context and family situation – potentially leading to better support in the case of absenteeism, homework incompletion, disruptive behaviour and disengagement.
‘We need to be able to identify these factors, understanding children’s well-being, as this impacts a learner’s concentration, focus, behaviour and engagement at school’, says Royce.
Before teaching grade six, Royce spent many years teaching at pre-school level ages 5-6 in Zambia. At this age, her class would learn about their emotions and their body. Providing foundational education supports children to know, hold and respect healthy boundaries. School teachings also incorporate an understanding about gender-based violence and abuse, in an age-appropriate manner. From this early age learners are then able to identify harmful behaviours they might be seeing in their home environments or facing themselves.
In her pre-school, Royce and other teachers and caregivers used an action song to help younger learners understand which body parts are private. Royce reflects that this aspect of child protection helps keep children safe. ‘These foundations are important because this age is when character is built, and this is the essence and values that children will grow up with and retain as adults.’
