Training teachers to implement a school oral health education programme in Tanzania

Abstract

Tanzania has a national programme for oral health education which is implemented by teachers at primary school level. Most teachers are not trained for this task and they have low abilities and willingness for it. In this study, the oral health education sessions conducted by teachers at school were observed to be deficient in content and in methods, addressing only toothbrushing in theory. Thus, a training model for the teachers was designed, implemented and evaluated, that was based on the teachers' training needs and other local conditions. A simple oral health education manual was designed to answer the educational needs of the pupils, and using it as a framework, all 125 teachers involved in school oral health education in one district were trained in workshops. These were conducted by dental personnel in cooperation with school administrators. For comparison, a sample of primary school teachers in an adjacent district were provided with the oral health education manual for self-learning without workshop training. Evaluation done 2 months afterwards revealed that the teachers trained in workshops, but not those who had studied the manual alone, had improved remarkably the quality of their oral health education sessions. The new sessions taught both the concepts and the skills of oral health care in a manner that actively involved the pupils in the learning process. This action study done in a Third World setting reveals the need for evaluation and support of the implementation of school oral health education, and demonstrates a feasible and effective means for doing it.