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Join IAPBChild eye health is a significant public health issue, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The 2030 In Sight strategy calls on us to leverage school and education settings to address the growing need.
Over 90 million young people are living with sight loss and most of this is preventable.
Children and adolescents with poor sight have worse educational outcomes and are more likely to be excluded from schools.
This in turn impacts achievement and access to work later in life resulting in lost potential and productivity.
Vision loss in children could be solved with relatively cost-effective solutions given that most vision impairment in school-aged children is due to uncorrected refractive error.
Comprehensive eye examination, refractive correction screening and the provision of glasses and other types of assistive devices and reading aids would hugely improve the issue.
There is a currently under-tapped opportunity for the sector to leverage schools and catalyse the widespread delivery of eye health promotion, screening and provision of glasses.
But we cannot do this alone. We will need to convince wider education partners, including ministries of education, that educational outcomes can be improved by implementing eye health into existing school health programmes.