Dental caries is one of the most common chronic disease that affect individuals at all ages, it is the principle oral problem in children and Adolescents. Dental caries is a disease which causes a progressive disintegrating of the inorganic and structure of the teeth. Children are the most important segment of our population and intend to receive attention from family, school, society and government. Children are truly the foundation of a society because healthy children grow to become healthy and strong adults who can actively participate in the developmental activities of a nation. Children spend considerable period of their lifetime in the school right from their childhood to adolescence. It has been proven that school can provide an ideal platform for the promotion of oral health. The research approach adopted in the present study was evaluative approach, and research design was one group pre test and post test design which belongs to pre - experimental design. Purposive Non random sampling technique was used to select the school as well as the sample. The sample size was of 60 school children’s age between 8 to 14 years. Data were collected by using structured interview schedule and structured teaching programme was intervened, again after a gap of seven days and post test was conducted with the same tool. Result showed that the pre test mean score was 13.5 (S.D =2.487) and in post test it was 26.02 (S.D =3.417). The mean post test knowledge score were higher than the mean pretest scores which indicated an improvement in the knowledge level of the respondents after structured teaching programme.

Keywords: knowledge; structured teaching programme; Dental caries; Effectiveness.