Summary:
The Kenya School Health Policy aims to provide a healthy, safe and friendly environment for all learners in Kenya.
Description:
The Kenya School Health Policy (2nd Edition, 2018) is designed to fulfill constitutional guarantees regarding child nutrition, health, and education. In this sense, it established “the school provides an organized structure that is conducive for the provision of health, nutrition services as well as a key avenue for disease prevention and control”.
It brings an important definition on child participation. It considers that learners shall be involved in the planning, designing and implementation of the school health programme. For FULL purposes, the document addresses:
- the underlying determinants of the right to health, such as adequate housing, food, clean safe water, social security and education.
- food security. It considers that every person has the right to be free from hunger and to have adequate food of acceptable quality.
- food quality and safety. It states that all food provided or purchased in school shall be regularly monitored by the Ministry of Health.
- the responsability on private sector.
Moreover, the policy upholds the right to health and the rights of children, which are entailed in Constitution of Kenya.
At last, the document explicitly acknowledges a critical shift in Kenya’s epidemiological landscape. Therefore, it introduces non-communicable diseases as chronic threats that deplete economic growth and trap families in poverty, tasking school health programs with early dietary prevention.