5 Ways Education Contributes to Health and Well-being | Global Campaign For Education
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A high-level meeting will take place on September 23rd under the theme “Universal Health Coverage: Moving Together to Build a Healthier World,” aiming to accelerate progress toward universal health coverage. Happening during the first SDG Summit, this will be an opportunity to explore the interlinkages and impact on other SDGs. While there are no specific targets linking directly education and well-being, we believe SDG4 is a critical enabler for SDG 1 (poverty), SDG 2 (hunger), SDG 3 (Health) and SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) and that education plays a key role in contributing to satisfy people’s basic needs. Ending vicious cycles Lifting people out of poverty Free, quality education breaks cycles of poverty and exclusion. A major lesson from the Millennium Development Goals was that the abolition of tuition fees is an extremely effective policy for making education more accessible and equitable. It directly facilitates access and completion for girls and children in poverty, who risk losing out on education when families struggling to cover the costs are forced to choose which child to educate. Ending hunger Hunger is closely related with several problems, like lack of education opportunities, poverty, inequality, war, climate change-related emergencies, and waste of food. Concerning education, families with little academic attainment tend to be more affected by hunger and hunger-related disease. This is not only because the lack of income and income-generating opportunities forced them to choose between buying food and investing in their children education. This is also related because the lack of academic skills reduces their opportunities to find jobs, feed their families and escape both hunger and poverty traps. In addition, research conducted by the World Food Programme shows that lack of food deteriorates children performance at school, making concentration considerably difficult and limiting their opportunities for learning. Increased health Sexual and reproductive health-care services require systematic educational processes to develop comprehensive sexuality education programs and thus fight gender-based violence and inequalities. This has a deterrent effect on child marriage and adolescent pregnancy and therefore also increases the levels of enrollment in secondary education[3]. Finally, the training of specialists in health and welfare promotion requires higher education systems to facilitate it. World Health Organization states that “scaling up educational programs to produce multi-disciplinary service delivery teams – which include a carefully balanced mix of clinicians, community health workers and health managers – is clearly urgent and essential”. Accessing clean water Authors: Maryline Mangenot, Vernor Muñoz, Luis Eduardo Pérez Murcia [1]Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press [2] Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, 4 April 2016A/HRC/32/32, parag..27. [3]Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, op.cit, parag.14. [4]Human rights to water and sanitation in spheres of life beyond the household with an emphasis on public spaces Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, 10 July 2019, A/HRC/42/47, parg. 14