Why primary health knowledge is important

Development philosophers worth the name never tire of stressing the need to educate all citizens about primary health care and hygiene if the country is to lighten the disease burden, first and foremost through prevention. The benefits of incorporating a basic health science course in schools would be considerable as it would equip the young with the knowledge and skills to take care of themselves as well as the environment around them. Much of the disease burden here -- both physical and mental -- are linked to nutritional deficiencies, poor hygiene, unsafe water and lack of sanitation. It is of vital interest -- therefore -- to address these aspects with the utmost priority if the human resource is to be healthy enough to function more productively. A comprehensive and compulsory 'health science for schools', could achieve for the nation a great deal more than expensively trained medical specialists, provided the content and method of teaching the health science course is knowledge-based, rather than designed to pass meaningless tests. A step by step course, from classes one to eight at least, could prepare school children with the required know-how to look after themselves. In addition, with a little training, they could become brigades of 'barefoot doctors' to serve the rural areas essentially with preventive health care inputs. Thus, it would be quite possible to address Bangladesh's health crisis with only a handful of specialists at the top and a reasonable number of pro-people practitioners spread out across the country. Prevention is absolutely better than cure. If the health science course is comparable to the ones used by established school examination boards, and is taught and learnt seriously, students could be counted upon not only for their own primary health care but for their family and community's care as well. After all, school education is supposed to be the foundation on which a nation's human resource -- a healthy resource -- is built. Education, in the real sense, would therefore remain inadequate if such a vital subject like health science is dealt with only perfunctorily in the school curriculum. Health, as the Alma Ata declaration said decades ago, is not merely the absence of disease but physical and mental well-being as well -- throughout life, starting from the womb, through childhood, adolescence and adulthood, into ripe old age. This should include reproductive health, most importantly those of adolescents whose special psycho-social needs deserve more sensitive handling in order to promote healthier human relationships in general and good gender equations in particular. Experts in adolescent reproductive health have for years been trying to get a cross-section of decision and opinion-makers, including parents and teachers, to address the problems of this age group and help adolescent children cope positively with the stresses of growing up. There are millions of young people just stepping into puberty in Bangladesh. Reaching out to them with the right kind of information about their developing bodies and exploring minds is crucial, if diseases and disabilities linked with their reproductive phase are to be avoided. About 70 per cent of the girls in rural Bangladesh are reportedly married off by the age of 15 and mortality among them and their new-born is scandalously high. The importance of adolescent-friendly sexual-health services therefore couldn't be clearer and also needs to be included in textbooks, to educate the young of both genders -- if they are to grow into robust, caring and mutually respectful men and women.