School Eye Health Guidelines

The IAPB School Eye Health Workgroup has released the “Standard Guidelines for Comprehensive School Eye Health programmes”. These school eye health guidelines should help deliver standardised comprehensive eye health services to more than 700 million children attending schools around the world.

The document covers a range of topics, including promoting hygiene and a healthy diet; addressing social stigma; screening, detection and referral of children along with timely interventions (like providing spectacles); low vision services; reducing eye morbidity due to harmful practices; and, detection and treatment of common clinical conditions.

The document also includes case studies and likely challenges school eye health programmes could encounter. It is a practical document with recommendations and a list of appropriate equipment and technology.

These guidelines are for you, if:

• You are involved in school health or eye health
• You are a policy maker, a manager, a service provider
• You are a stakeholder or a member of the education community
• You are simply interested in making peoples’ lives better

 IAPB thanks the authors of these guidelines and the school eye health workgroup for this timely and useful document. 

Download the document from here.

Photo credit: Submitted by Seema Bannerjee; LV Prasad Eye Institute, WSD Photo competition.