Health education in the context of performance driven education: Challenges and opportunities

The education of the whole person is promoted as the central premise of the Irish education system. However, the practice of schooling at post primary level diverges significantly from the espoused ethos of holistic and personal development, with measurement, accountability and performativity taking centre stage. The significant influence of a consumerist agenda in education has meant that in the drive to educate for exam success, the development of affective education has been severely challenged. This has placed significant pressure on schools to treat the cognitive and affective as mutually exclusive and to teach the cognate discipline alone. In this context, a narrowed edition of the subject becomes prioritised to the detriment of the promotion of students and health and well-being. The subject Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE) is dedicated to the promotion of the health and well-being of students. Ireland adopted this specific curricular approach to suit the already dominant discrete curricular structure of Irish schooling. The subject of SPHE and the health promoting schools initiative has much to offer in terms of student development, yet both have experienced significant challenges in terms of parity of esteem. This chapter will provide a critical analysis of the role of education and of the health promoting school within school systems where pedagogical practice is driven by a different value system, that of exam performativity and knowledge reproduction. The chapter will also make recommendations in terms of the development of a sustainable, affective curriculum and health promoting schools initiative.