Educating children in health in the school setting is as fundamental as building knowledge, and is critical to their ability to learn and therefore fully benefit from education. Health education allows them to acquire the knowledge, attitudes and practices necessary for a healthy life.
Many global programmes and initiatives focus on children and health. It is critical that eye health is part of these global initiatives and that programmes are comprehensive and go beyond vision testing for refractive error, currently the primary focus of school eye health activities. School eye health therefore needs to be fully integrated into both wider school health and eye health programmes.
We're attending the conference in Miami on 6-14 March to share our expertise, engage with the education community and explore how we can transform inclusive education.
Collaborating with organisations of people with disabilities (OPDs) on our inclusive education projects has earned the Sightsavers-led Inclusive Futures consortium a Zero Project Award in 2024.
As learners with disabilities are disproportionately affected by global crises such as climate change, we're urging governments to build more resilient education systems for everyone.