CHAPTER 2 PRELIMINARY LITERATURE REVIEW
2.4 THE NEED OF HEALTH PROMOTING SCHOOL IN LIMPOPO PROVINCE
2.4.3 School Environmental and physical Factors
24 health programmes in public schools in South Africa. This commitment was in line with the health sector’s aim of providing health services to all sections of the population, including schools, through the Primary Health Care (PHC) approach, which embodied all elements of health care, with specific emphasis on preventive and promotive health care. These are the country’s efforts to also prevent risks that learners are exposed to and to promote their health (DoH, 2012).
The aim of the South Africa’s Integrated School Health Programme (ISHP) is to provide a more comprehensive package of services, addressing not only barriers to learning, but other conditions as well, which contribute to morbidity and mortality amongst learners during childhood and adulthood (DoH,2013). The ISHP also includes a new and more prominent emphasis on the provision of health services in schools, which previously only conducted health screenings and referrals. School- based health services are also set to expand over time, as are services for learners with special needs. Nurses are expected to embrace the HPSI as part of their school health activities by forging their way to move beyond a traditional reliance on the limited health education role of providing medication and first aid at schools (Alexandropoulou, 2013).
• Learner’s involvement in working and learning at school
As reiterated above under the title “Learner’s involvement in school health activities”, it is imperative to understand the involvement of learners in working and learning at school in order to ensure that the personal skills of learners are developed. The belief among authorities in schools that learners should only concentrate on school work to improve their grades differs with the principle of HPS which expects the school to develop personal skills among learners and to create an enabling environment for individuals to take control of their own situation.
In Australia, the notorious skin cancer incidence prompted the schools to adopt ‘The Cancer Council Victoria’, an organisation which emphasises implementation of a sun protection policy to be followed by the whole school community. Learners wear sun protective clothing, such as hats and sunglasses, apply sunscreen, avoid outdoor activities when the sun is at its highest, plant a tree for shade and study ultraviolet radiation levels at different times of the day (WHO, 2000).
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School buildings and infrastructure
It is a legal requirement that the school environment should be in an acceptable condition. Good teachers can be attracted and retained by providing a well-maintained school environment, which also creates a conducive learning environment for learners.
There should be an intentional and continuous school maintenance effort, which is essential to attain the set objectives developed by each school. Non-routine maintenance of the school facility is generally unacceptable, resulting in deterioration over time. Ongoing neglect of a school exposes learners to danger, demotivates educators and costs the state more over time, as the buildings collapse (SASA, 1999).
Section 20 of the South African School Act states that governing bodies of public schools must administer and control the school property, buildings and grounds occupied by schools, including school hostels, if applicable.
De Wet (2004) agrees that school vandalism has negative economic, psychological, and educational implications for education. On the other hand, well-cared for school facilities, furniture and equipment, as well as clean toilets, are conducive to a healthy teaching and learning environment. De Wet’s study also found that 51.84% represent the extent of vandalism by neighbourhood surrounding the respondents school while 44.50% represent of vandalism on school buildings committed by adjoining the schools. The school to which the respective respondents were attached, viewed vandalism as a problem, with 138 (63.30%) answering “Yes”, 44 (20.18%) answering
“No” and 36 (16.52%) indicating that they were “Uncertain”. However, it was clear that schools are regularly vandalised by herdsmen, gangsters, drop-outs, ex-learners and learners from neighbouring schools. The research indicated that juridical, economic, drug and alcohol, as well as learner-related problems are considered important causes of school vandalism (de Wet, 2004).
In the Mail and Guardian Newspaper, on the 3rd of June, 2020, the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga reported that the number of vandalised schools in South Africa during the lockdown period stood at 1 577 as at 19 May 2020. Barely 24 hours later, Kwazulu-Natal MEC of Education, Kwazi Mshengu, shared with his social media followers how Covid-19 essential goods were stolen in one of the schools in the province (Mofokeng L, 2020).
Water supply and sanitation
26 Globally, one sixth of the people lack access to safe and clean water sources (WHO,2002). Infiltration can happen in intermittent water distribution systems.
Contaminated water may infiltrate into pipelines.
The same report noted that billions of people globally do not have access to improved sanitation facilities (WHO, 2002).
Surveys of schools in South Africa have been conducted to enquire about the school infrastructure, for example, the number and type of toilets in a school or the presence of tap water, risks that young people are exposed to, such as sexual risks, or nutritional patterns (Reddy et al., 2010).
Social environment at school
According to WHO (2004), the social environment influences the cognitive development and educational attainment of learners at school. Children who engage in good social relationships seem to perform better academically than those who do not. Children living in social environments characterised by residential stability are less likely to be absent from school and perform better academically than those who do not. Those who live in poor-quality neighbourhoods (e.g. low socio-economic status neighbourhoods) are more likely to drop out of school before completion than those who do not (WHO, 2004).
The WHO (2004) provides an example of an Australian study of children living in 257 neighbourhoods. The study reported that a sense of belonging to the neighbourhood (having positive social relationships within the neighbourhood) was associated with more pro-social amongst children. The results of this was compared to an American study, which found that children growing up in impoverished neighbourhoods were more likely to experience maltreatment (negative social relationships) than those living in neighbourhoods without these characteristics. The study further found that the rules and norms which govern a community could also exert an influence upon the children.
For example, many Australian communities have laws which prevent adults from smoking in the vicinity of children’s recreational facilities. These laws increase the capacity of communities to protect their children’s heath (WHO, 2004).
When a social environment lacks basic resources, such as healthy food, safe housing, living-wage jobs, decent schools, supportive social networks, access to health care and other public and private goods and services, it presents the highest public health
27 risk of serious illness and premature death. The ecologic approach to population health, recognises that individuals and communities interact with their physical and social environments to attain health.
A HPS also strives to provide a healthy environment, school health education and school health services, along with school/community projects and outreach, health promotion programmes for staff, nutrition and food safety programmes, opportunities for physical education and recreation, and programmes for counselling, social support and mental health promotion (WHO, 1996).
Safety and security
The main purpose of installing and implementing safety and security measures at schools is to create a safer environment where individuals can move freely and feel secure in going about their daily schooling activities. Currently, school safety and security is one of the most basic problems facing South African schools. Therefore, creating and maintaining schools that are safe is a priority that should be on the agenda of every education department (van Jaarsveld, 2011).
An audit conducted in Western Cape schools in January 2019 found that many schools had more learners per toilet, broken toilets and not enough money to hire cleaners.
This audit found that approximately 57% of Western Cape schools did not meet the Western Cape Education Department’s minimum requirement of one toilet for every 35 learners and that there was no standard ratio of cleaning staff to school population.
Less than half (47%) of schools audited has a full-time security guard. Corporal punishment still took place at 83% of schools in the audit sample and four out of 5 learners reported that teachers used sticks, batons, pipes and other objects to hit them. Approximately 98% of schools audited were fenced, while 42% of schools audited had holes in their fences. The learners reported incidences of sexual assault at 16% of schools in the audit sample (Western Cape Education Department [WCED]
Audit, 2019).