Agreement signed between the Board of Education and the Health Observatory
”You have made my dream come true” said Camille Galap, the Superintendant of Schools of the Guadeloupe school district. The Board of Education and the Health Observatory, represented respectively by the Superintendant of Schools and Dr. Louis Jeffry signed an agreement on Wednesday August 31 in the afternoon in the offices of the education service. A partnership which is the result of a reflection led by Michel Sanz, the Director of Education in Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy, Evelyne Fleming, the task officer for this same department, and Dr. Louis Jeffry on the basis of a finding: academic success depends on student health.
"I’ve been in Saint-Martin for about ten months and my staff and the social workers very quickly alerted me on student health" explained Michel Sanz. Many suffer from malnutrition. In Saint-Martin, it is common to see a group of children head towards a food truck at lunchtime and see some of them only a buy a sandwich and then share it with their schoolmates. "A malnourished child cannot learn well" added the representative of the Superintendant of Schools. This agreement therefore marks the beginning of a long-term endeavor.
Concretely, nothing has been decided yet. The signatories will begin a period of meetings during which they will begin by defining specific objectives and establishing methodological resources.
After this preparatory phase which will last at least six months, there will be a field study which - according to Louis Jeffry - can not last a long time (approximately 4 months) and will be conducted with a sample of students which will be as representative as possible. The aim is to obtain figures on the physical condition of the students in the Northern islands: sleep, obesity, nutrition, psychosis, addictions, hygiene...in order to know which actions should be taken to improve academic performance.
"Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy will in a way become a laboratory where research and actions will be carried out, which can then be useful for the whole school district" said Camille Galap.
