Promoting healthy and eco-friendly school through students’ participation

Facilities to ensure health and learning skills for children is essential of an effective education system. Safety, supportive environment, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition are the basis to make school environment healthy. Healthy lifestyle includes adequate physical activity, harmony in life and prevention of unhealthy practices. A qualitative study has been conducted to understand the difficulties in following healthy practices in schools through participation of students. There are ten government high schools at Balasore town, Odisha. Ninth standard students from four government schools of Balasore district of Odisha formed the study sample. Participatory discussion and observation methods were used to conduct the study. Students provided their views on various health and environmental indicators such as physical activities, school environment, waste management at school, availability of facilities like safe drinking water, toilets, play grounds etc. in school, and habits of children related to choice of junk foods, tobacco use, etc. Study found inadequate healthy practices among children and lack of availability of facilities supporting health promotion and eco-friendly environment in school. Current study is process oriented which may be applied to make students understand the connection between health and environment and participate in decision making to make school campus healthy and environment friendly