Viewpoint on realigning the Nigerian secondary school curriculum to prevent communicable diseases

Abstract

The school is an important agent of community health promotion through its curricular and extracurricular activities. This article highlights the various actions that could be taken to realign the Nigerian secondary school curriculum to prevent communicable diseases. The documentary research approach was used to identify and examine relevant literature sources, and to analyse and synthesise the information obtained. The results indicated that realigning the Nigerian secondary school curriculum to prevent communicable diseases would require several actions, such as the inclusion of school health and well-being in the objectives of Nigeria’s National Policy on Education (NPE). We also observed that as school curriculum objectives and activities are based on the NPE, the incorporation of health education as a core theme in the policy could help to realign the curriculum and adequately prepare secondary school students to combat communicable diseases. Recommendations include the development of more school-targeted health research projects to provide curriculum planners with reliable data to make proactive and informed curriculum innovation decisions regarding communicable disease prevention in Nigerian secondary schools.