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Healthier schools, for fairer societies: Join us, to make every school a health promoting school

By Ingrid Stegeman, EuroHealthNet
24/01/2025

The current buzzwords in most policy circles, including at the EU level, are ‘’competition’’ and ‘’security’’.   These words reflect the insecurity we feel in an increasingly  conflict ridden, fast-paced and changing world. How is this likely to affect our education systems? At the EU level, we are seeing a stronger emphasis on hard skills, like science, technology, engineering and maths.  This risks under-investments in the conditions and competencies that students of all ages need to ensure their physical, mental and social wellbeing, and to participate in their communities and societies.  Investing in these conditions and skills is critical to vitality, and to achieving the very objectives and values that bring the countries of the European Union together, like peace, security, wellbeing, and respect for fundamental rights and freedoms.

The United Nations has proclaimed today, 24 January, as International Day of Education, in celebration of the role of education for peace and development. A new UNESCO recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development adopted by all 194 UNESCO Member States in December 2024 sets out how education in all its forms and dimensions can and should be a path to lasting peace, since it shapes how we see the world and treat others. The UNESCO recommendation was inspired by the “Futures of Education”  report that highlights that learners must go beyond critical literacy and numeracy skills, to also acquire competencies like empathy, intercultural understanding and systems thinking.

The Health Promoting School approach offers a framework to enable schools to create the conditions and build the competencies that everyone in the school community needs, for responsible citizenship, and lifelong health and wellbeing.

What is a Health Promoting School?

The WHO defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.’’  The Health Promoting School approach builds on this definition, and ensures that schools “constantly strengthen their capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working.  The approach encourages schools to take a long-term, structured approach, involving the whole school community, to identify what is needed to improve health and wellbeing in the school, from a physical, mental and social perspective, and to implement solutions and evaluate progress.

 

EuroHealthNet has been strengthening ties with the education sector, as a key setting for health, by coordinating the Schools4Health initiative. Sixteen schools in six European countries are implementing best practices in the area of nutrition, physical activity and mental health, as a starting point to introduce or strengthen a more comprehensive HPS approach.

Our overall aim is to contribute to the movement to make “every school a health promoting school’’. This includes raising awareness, exchanging experiences and encouraging school leaders and public officials to embed the HPS approach in their schools and educational systems. Advancing HPS has multiple benefits, over the long run; it reduces costs of health systems, improves educational outcomes and equal opportunities, and benefits societies at large, given that children, youth and adults who feel better, do better.   

Sixteen schools in six European countries are implementing best practices in the area of nutrition, physical activity and mental health, as a starting point to introduce or strengthen a more comprehensive HPS approach.

Join us in the call for investments in the Health Promoting School approach, to achieve common EU values and objectives, not just today, the international day of Education, but throughout 2025. Follow us on LinkedIn to learn more about the approach and our experiences in Schools4Health.

Our work does not stop here - watch this space for exciting developments in Schools4Health and the health-promoting school movement - including our upcoming final conference in autumn 2025.

Are you also working in the field of health promoting schools? We are eager to hear from you too! Reach out to us on  LinkedIn with any interesting events or publications. Only together can we fulfil the mission of making every school a health promoting school.

Disclaimer: 
This project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor HaDEA can be held responsible for them.

Posted on 24/01/2025 by Ingrid Stegeman, EuroHealthNet

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