Opportunities and challenges associated with food and nutrition education in Sri Lankan primary schools

ABSTRACT

Primary school food and nutrition education helps to establish healthy dietary patterns among young children. Teachers play an important role in the success of this form of education. This study aimed to explore teachers’ perceptions of opportunities and challenges associated with food and nutrition education in Sri Lankan primary schools. Individual face-to-face interviews were conducted in the Sinhala or Tamil languages with 21 primary school teachers from April to June 2019. The recorded interviews were transcribed and later translated into English. The themes were identified using the template analysis technique. Lack of time and resources for teaching, lack of support from parents in practising healthy dietary habits, and availability of unhealthy foods in the school canteen and near-by food outlets were identified as the main challenges associated with teaching food and nutrition concepts to the students. School mid-day meal programmes, simple food and nutrition-related subject contents, and practical activities were identified as opportunities that facilitate food and nutrition teaching. The findings indicate that teachers face some challenges in teaching food and nutrition-related subject matters in the primary school set-ups. Policy planners and education officials have to work with primary school teachers to find ways to overcome these challenges and to further take up new opportunities. This will help to uplift the status of this form of education.

KEYWORDS:

• Food and nutrition education
• primary school
• teachers
• sri lanka

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all teachers who voluntarily participated in this study. Also, authors wish to extend their gratitude to Zonal Education Director of Giriulla Education division and all the principals for granting permission and providing necessary support to carry out this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.