Health Education
Introduction
In order for students to get the most holistic education, their health status is important too. While they should study hard, they should not neglect their health and should know what they need to do to remain healthy. As such, health education is an integral component during a student’s primary education.
Health education is a supplementary subject in the primary school education system. It is neither a core academic subject nor is it graded. Pupils are just expected to know how to keep themselves healthy and apply the knowledge they have learnt from this subject on themselves.
Ultimately, one’s health is within one’s control, and thus, if a student refuses to keep himself healthy despite all these help from taking Health Education, there is nothing else we can do. Health education is meant as a supplement to try and keep students healthy, not as an examinable subject. However, health education has been proven to be successful as students are taking more care of their health conditions.
Purpose of Health Education
Health education was implemented to keep a student healthy both physically and mentally. It hopes to develop a positive attitude in students for them to take care of their health, that their health lies in their hands and that if they do not take care of their body and mind, it will be nobody but their fault when something unfortunate happens because of a negligence in health.
It hopes to impart students with a good knowledge of how to keep themselves in good health as well as provide opportunities to apply these knowledge and practice good health habits on themselves. Through the theoretical and practical part of the subject, it is hoped that the students will take good care of themselves and practice good health habits that will last them a lifetime.
Importance of Health Education
Health education has proven itself to be important. Knowing how to and living healthily is the secret for living a good life and thus, it is important that the students are able to keep themselves in good health
This is even more important in today’s context. In today’s society where unhealthy diets and habits such as fast food, playing computer games and drug abuse etc. are prominent, it is even more important that students know and are able to keep themselves healthy, not giving in to these external influences.
As Singapore’s society is becoming more and more fast paced, people are also neglecting their health due to various reasons such as being a workaholic, causing one to have an improper diet and lack of sleep as they focus their time on working. Thus, health education plays an important role here as they remind the students that health is important and they can preach this information to their parents who may be neglecting their health.
Health Education Curriculum
The health education curriculum throughout primary school education consists of nine basic components. They are Growth and body development, Nutritional health, Good health habits, Dental care, Environmental health, Prevention of diseases, Safety education, Substance use and abuse and Mental health.
Teachers are to suit the students’ need when teaching health education and emphasize more on the topics which the students are having problems with applying. For example, if the students are growing obese and have no idea how to stop themselves, the teachers should focus more on Nutritional health and emphasize on the need to control one’s diet.
All these nine integral components of health education cover a wide base of topics and are essential in helping students learn about the importance and methods of keeping themselves healthy.
