Abstract

 Non-smoking school personnel and schools that have Tobacco-free school environment provide Positive role models for children and young people to have awareness about tobacco use. This report features availability of tobacco control teaching materials and training, and school anti-tobacco policies implementation in schools.Methods- Cross sectional study was carried out for over a period of six months .Stratified cluster sampling technique was done to include the Government Kannada medium schools and English medium schools in Bangalore south. The data collection was done using GSPS questionnaire (WHO FCTC Tobacco control). Chi square test and Fisher’s Exact Test was used to demonstrate cross tabulation with confidence intervals. Significance levels of 0.05 were considered for statistical analyses. Results- About 86.5% of English medium and 95.5% of Kannada medium school personnel indicated schools should have a policy or rule specifically prohibiting tobacco use among school personnel on school premises/property. More than 80.9% of English medium and 87.7% of Kannada medium school personnel agreed that tobacco product advertising should be completely banned. Majority of 71.9% of both English medium and 53.7% of Kannada medium school personnel said that there were no non-classroom programs or activities (such as an assembly) used to teach tobacco use prevention to students in the school. Conclusion- The findings of this study has implications for future tobacco prevention strategies in schools with strict smoking policies among young adults, school personnel and around school premises where it might provide support to establish smokefree schools.