The Past, Present and Future of School-Bases Health Education among Primary School Pupils

School based health education creates a positive and conducive learning environment that engages students in learning skills for longevity and healthy living. In the older days, people were teaching health education informally through the use of myths and superstitions beliefs. For instance, it is forbidden for people, to collect rain water directly from the roofing sheets with their palms. The belief in this regard is that one's hands will start shaking without any iota of remedy. Through these myths and superstitious belief, people learnt healthy living practices and morals which were passed from one generation to another. The need for the entire citizen to learn about hygiene and healthy living practices led to the introduction of health education in primary, post primary and higher institution of learning. Then, health education curriculum in primary and post primary school was comprehensive and the topics there in were sequentially arranged. The subject was taught as a separate subject and the rationale behind it was to propagate good healthy practices among learners. Lately in the 19th century, curriculum modification led to the removal of health education as a core subject, sequence to this, it is now taught as integrated subject without enough hands and time allocation. At present, majority of pupils have little knowledge as regards to health and this constitutes majority to outbreak of diseases which often demand for huge capital resources to keep them alive.