Healthdev: ‘DepEd fails to keep students fit’

The Department of Education (DepEd) is mandated to ensure that students are fit for school, but a report by the HEALTHDEV Institute has found that the department has gravely failed in fulfilling this task.

The HEALTHDEV Institute is of the view that the government-established Health and Nutrition Centers (HNCs) under the function of DepEd are not able to address urgent needs of the students nor are their presence felt in schools.

The HNCs, first established in 1987,  were created to fulfill part of DepEd’s mandate which is to ensure that educational inputs are not wasted due to the poor learning capability of an unhealthy and malnourished learner.

Past studies show a child’s health has a significant impact to his or her learning abilities. Thus, it is important to put systems in place for the early detection and intervention of health problems. Health programs based in schools provide a venue for linking resources in health, nutrition, sanitation and education.

HNCs aim to reduce and ultimately eradicate students’ health and nutrition problems through an integrated and responsive School Health and Nutrition Program (ISHNP).

However, the National Nutritional Status Data for 2010 – 2011 reveal that the rate of malnutrition in pre-elementary and elementary students in the country is still at 16% or 2 million out of 13 million.

Investigating budget allocation and utilization

In an aim to contribute to the improvement of the ISHNP, HealthDev institute assessed the 2011 allocation and utilization of funds for basic health and nutrition needs of children in elementary schools. The institute conducted studies in selected first and fifth class municipalities and cities in Luzon.

The study aims to determine if children are given appropriate health interventions in terms of early detection and management of health problems. In addition, it assesses whether there is adequate budget allocated for DepEd’s HNCs to successfully perform its tasks.

The study was conducted through review of previous documents, interviews and focused group discussions. One major finding is that budget allocation for HNCs has been decreasing. In addition, the budget made available for health and nutrition programs has been underutilized.

Lack of medical personnel

One of the striking results of these misallocation and underutilization of budget is the insufficient number of health and nutrition personnel in elementary schools.

For instance, 2011 data from DepEd reveal that the ratio of medical officers to public school students is at 1:131,871. Such alarming ratio is also observed in terms of dentist and public health nurses available for students.

Table 1. HNC Medical Personnel: Pupil Ratio 2011

Discipline	Number	Health Personnel: Pupil Ratio
Medical Officers (MD)	146	1:131,874
Dentists (DMD)	684	1:28,148
Public Health Nurses (PHN)	3,556	1:5,414

Source: Data from DepEd Basic Education Statistics Fact Sheet, Comparative Analysis of the Basic Education Statistics SY 2010-2011 and Health and Nutrition Center, Question and Answer, version August 2011

The study reveals that less than 1% of the DepEd 2011 General Appropriation is allocated to HNCs; and, despite the increasing student population, budget for HNCs continues to drop. While the allocation is only a little fraction, still not all of the funds were utilized and converted to actual services.

Furthermore, due to the lack of personnel, teachers and staff feel burdened with the additional tasks monitoring the health and nutrition of students.

Ensuring students are fit for school

The study recommends two approaches: one that keeps the status-quo where HNCs are under DepEd’s function, and the other which will require the shifting of responsibilities from DepEd.

In the former, since HNCs remain under DepEd’s jurisdiction, the recommendations include the following:

▪ outsourcing of health personnel to the community to which the school belongs to;

▪ the school sponsoring one full meal each day; and

▪ ensuring effective monitoring systems for the proper implementation of funds.

The other recommendation involves delegating health and nutrition programs to agencies such as the local government unit (LGU) and the Department of Health (DOH) while keeping only those that are under the immediate mandate of DepEd. 

Programs that DepEd can delegate include, but are not limited to: medical, dental and nursing services.

The inability of the education sector to address nutritional problems of public school children may be predictive of the Philippines’ inability to achieve its millennium development goal (MDG) of decreasing the undernutrition rate to 6-7% by 2015.

You can read the full report of the study below. – Rappler.com

This report is published with the permission of HEALTHDEV Institute.