Aside from teaching load: Educators tasked to help monitor students' health

Amid reports on the high incidence of malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies among students, public school teachers have been directed by the Department of Education to monitor the health of their students aside from their teaching chores.

DepEd Health and Nutrition Center director Thelma Santos said that if teachers would be more observant of their students, they would contribute to the early detection or prevention of illness among students and ease the pressure on DepEd's health workers.

"Our school nurses and doctors cannot attend to all 19 million public school students," she said. "It would be less of a burden for our health professionals if our teachers could also help spot early signs of health problems in their students before situation gets too far to handle."

According to the center's latest statistics, 65 percent of public school children below 12 years old have iodine deficiencies, and more than one in three children in the same age bracket suffer from iron deficiency anemia (IDA).

Poor oral hygiene is also at the root of rampant absenteeism as dental caries, or tooth decay, is prevalent in 87 percent of school children, the same statistics said.

At least 22 percent of public elementary pupils also have abnormalities in their urine, which the health center said could be signs of urinary tract infections, among others.

On drug use, the center said nearly 10 percent of students in the secondary and tertiary levels had admitted to having used drugs. Most of the high school students who admitted having used drugs said they did so only to experiment, it added.

Santos advised teachers to watch out for signs of drug abuse, alcoholism, and ill health, which include redness of the eyes, mental block, stammering, weight loss, unusual behavior such as negative response to schoolwork, absenteeism, and declining grades.

Santos said these signs could also point to deeper problems such as depression, involvement in street gangs, and a predisposition to suicide, among others.

She stressed that there was a need for teachers to undergo adequate training in the effective teaching of proper and positive health practices.

Santos said there was a need to upgrade the skills and the support given to school health and nutrition personnel, nutrition supervisors and administrators to effectively implement school health and nutrition programs.

She encouraged parents to coordinate closely with teachers on the health condition of students that could affect the latter's performance in school. - Jasmin R. Uy