indian council of medical research - Pondicherry University DSpace ...

een observed in many parts of the world (Bundy and Guyatt,1995).
Sample
Registration System (SRS) data indicate that under five mortality rate is decl~nlng at a
rate of 3.0% per annum (Bodhanker and Shasikala,1995). Later in life, attention is
again focused on them as adolescents end young adults because they enter an
economically productive phase and are faced with many behavior problems. The
Important school age period sandwiched between these two phases, has not
received the due attention from parents, teachers and health professionals. This is
possibly due to its relative freedom from serious illnesses and signif~cant behavior
problems. There Is a dearth of community level information on the needs of the school
age children and identification of areas that require attention of everyone concerned
(Bundy and Guyatt,l995).
School age is very important in the development of an individual because ~t is during
this phase, the foundation for future physical end behavior pattern is la~d. These in turn
determine the individual's health and also his ultimate economic and social potentials.
There is no uniformity in the definition of school age. Whereas primary school age is
between 5 and 12 years (Gopalan,1993), school age broadly spans the period between
6 and 14 years (UNICEF,1990) or 5-14 years of age (Bundy and Guyatt,1995). In ind~a,
a child must have completed 5 years before entering the flrst standard and there are
10 years of schooling. Therefore logically the school age is between 5 and 15 years of
age.
During these crucial 10 years, the inputs laid in the preschool years for
intellectual, cognitive, social, emotional, physical and language development are
nurtured and the individual is helped to blossom to his full potential and become an
economically productive and socially Iw-nonious member of the community. In thls