Health checks don’t go far enough
massey-university
Wed Aug 22 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Health checks don’t go far enough
Wednesday, 22 August 2007, 4:20 pm
Press Release: Massey University
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Health checks don’t go far enough, say literacy researchers
Massey University literacy researchers have welcomed the government’s B4 School programme of health checks for four and five-year olds, but say it does not go far enough to address New Zealand’s endemic low literacy problems.
Poor health is the number one issue identified in Massey’s three-year study of adult literacy and employment, which will end later this year. The study investigated literacy and workforce issues, in the light of statistics indicating that more than 40 per cent of New Zealand workers have a level of functional literacy thought insufficient for modern workplace environments.
Massey’s Department of Communication and Journalism conducted the study in partnership with community groups in Wanganui, Head of department Associate Professor Frank Sligo says more than two thirds of the adult literacy learners interviewed said poor health, often during childhood but also as adults, had disrupted their learning of important literacy skills.
"Health was the single most frequently mentioned issue, and greatly outweighed the next issue, family environment. Health was also an issue about which people were often still feeling very angry and frustrated,” he says.
“Things like not being able to see the blackboard, not being able to hear the teacher properly, having an undiagnosed behavioural condition, or coping with a break from school due to a health issue, topped the list of 30 common factors that people in adult literacy training told us had held them back.
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“Many adults felt they had been put in the too-hard basket when at school, and it was not until later in life they found out that a health issue was the likely cause of much of their difficulty coping in the classroom. Often, their self-esteem had been enormously damaged by thinking they were ‘not smart’, when it turned out that actually they just needed glasses.”
Dr Sligo said the B4 School checks have the potential to raise New Zealand’s overall literacy levels down the track by catching many hearing, vision, and behavioural conditions early, but more checks and better follow-up systems are needed at a range of ages, not just before school.
Time off school after a major illness or accident was also raised repeatedly as a disruption to learning. “For example, one person told us that they were an A student until they had three months off school with a broken leg. After that, they were never able to catch up to the same levels again, and became discouraged. This was a typical scenario told to us in different forms by different people over and over again."
A link was also identified between bullying in schools and health problems, with many people indicating they took repeated “sickies” as students, to avoid abuse from peers.
“Better support systems are needed to ensure that any time off school, even a short break, does not upset a student’s learning patterns. Health screening is needed at regular intervals throughout schooling, as many of the health issues raised in our study, including mental illness which was another very common factor, might not be evident at age five.”
"We also suggest that creating positive, inclusive schoolyard cultures needs to be a government priority. There are privately funded anti-bullying programmes, but the high prevalence of bullying experienced by the people in our study suggests these are inadequate."
Health Minister Pete Hodgson has announced on Monday that the B4 School health checks will roll out from February next year. They will be piloted with up to 1000 four year olds in Wanganui and South Auckland.
ENDS
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