If you consider the fact that we have been working in the area of WASH in schools since 1980s, the key question is: have we seen enough results that have come out from WASH in Schools? When reflecting on WASH in Schools should we not be a lot further in our developments in getting WASH in Schools on the agenda globally? Relatively speaking, only a few countries have a WASH in Schools policy, either separate or part of their overall sanitation and hygiene policy, in place. We also do not see enough inter-sectoral cooperation taking place between the various Ministries whether they be the Ministry of Health, Education, Infrastructure and any others. How can we expect WASH in Schools to work well if inter-sectoral co-operation does not take place properly and national policies do not directly acknowledge the role of WASH in Schools?

Yes, there are various case studies which focus on planning & management, actions in schools and teaching-learning, technology/design, scaling up or expanding the program while retaining its quality. However these are only global, national, district or community pocket case studies.

If we still have issues such as the lack of provision of facilities to provide water, lack of use and cleanliness of latrines and urinals, lack of teachers trained in school sanitation and hygiene, lack of standard norms (which vary considerably among countries), lack of behaviour change in communities and lack of funding for WASH in Schools programmes (e.g. per child costs of a WASH programme for each year ranges from the equivalent of US$2.40 to US$16 (Source: School sanitation and hygiene education- Results from the assessment of a 6 country pilot project- May 2006) how can we say that WASH in schools has been a success?

Given the focus on the provisions for water and sanitation at least in India we failed. This is not only true in government run schools, but also in booming private schools in small, medium and major towns in India. This I could say from my experiences, that even the international schools in Delhi don't have provision of soap for the children before eating food in their wash basins. So, you can imagine the situation in government run schools. If a school has toilet, then it has water problem and so on. There are hardly efforts in separate toilets for boys and girls in primary schools in rural areas. We can't imagine the use of soap before their meal in schools and after defection. The coordination between institutions responsible for water and sanitation and education department is a major concern. Further, the awareness level among teachers in these schools is a concern. We will hardly find that the schools have adequate provisions of WASH in real sense.

WASH in Schools have failed in the sense of coverage and awareness.

I am from Haiti and until I started working at UNICEF in 2011, I didn't know such program existed. I lived in St. Marc and in Port-au-Prince, never heard of such implementations in the schools, and I attended public schools. Even now, when I tell families still living in Haiti and going to schools, they never heard of such program. I think it is important to raise the profile of WASH beyond PaP, in Haiti, for example.

Even if UNICEF can not physically implement in other cities/areas, I think they should try to convene region wide/country wide conferences where they reach people beyond the borders of their physical implementations and inform people how they can promote hygiene in schools, menstruation hygiene management without support on their own. And by conferences I do not mean campaigns. I mean for environment where WASH professionals go to schools in other places where they are not working in and educate with others. Feel out the interests of other schools who currently are not getting UNICEF support and engage in conversation with those folks, share with them tools/packages and kits.

There are 2.6 billion who lack access to toilet, we need to work harder to spread information, tools and program reach.

Up front:

- who is we? the development incrowd?

- how do you measure failed?

My perception:

I have worked for a good 15 years full time in various poor societies (with obviously some very richt among them) around the world. After that I have been involved for another 15 years in WASH and IWRM related cooperation in over 25 countries. Whenever I went rural or low-income urban, the overwhelming majority (guestimate>75%) of the (primary) schools I visited had either unkept or derelict toilet facilities, most of the time not providing much privacy to girls. Probably even a higher percentage did not have any decent handwashing facility: either no water, dirty water, and very very rarely anything resembling soap or ash.

Peter J. Bury, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

Whilst I agree that a range of governments and NGos and other organisations have supported improvement of some WASH in schools as well as schools themselves, I also agree with the comments above re the scale of the problem has not been responded to with the scale of resources required. This is one area where we have so far failed. In Tanzania during 2009-2010, SNV/WaterAid/UNICEF undertook a detailed mapping project of the real situation on the ground in school WASH. It mapped 2697 pre-, primary and secondary schools, about 1/6 in the whole country and found that: only 11% reached the current Ministry of Education standard ratio for latrine drop holes, 20% have more than 100 pupils per drop hole and 6% have no latrines; 96% did not have sanitation suited for people with disabilities; 52% of girls latrines did not have doors (boys a similar number); 92% did not have functional hand-washing facilities; and 99% did not have soap. The quality of construction and maintenance / governance also varied dramatically, something that does not show up well on the regular data collection. Using the data from the school WASH mapping and using a range of costs from different organisations who had been implementing school WASH a very basic calculation was undertaken. This indicated that to bring all schools in Tanzania up to a basic minimum standard, a sum in the region of USD 3.2 million would be needed for each district on average, and about USD 0.5 billion for the whole country. These figures do not include the organisation / institutional costs or overheads for managing the implementation / follow up etc and do not consider population growth, both of which would add significantly to the cost. This could mean a real price tag of maybe USD 1 billion or 1.5 billion considering the number of years it is likely to take to bring all up to a basic minimum standard. In some countries including Tanzania there are SWAps for water supply, the Tanzanian one having a nominal contribution to household and school sanitation. The 'Water' SWAP for Tanzania (one of, or the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa) has a target budget of USD 2.89 billion for a 20 year period, and has most of the large donors supporting it (but even with this it is still estimated that these funds will not be able to keep pace with population growth let increase access to water supply for all Tanzanians from the current situation). School WASH would require a maybe half of this whole budget, but the focus on school WASH and the resources had not until recently been on the national government or donor agenda except for supporting occasional projects or programmes. This is the challenge for resourcing for school by not being more realistic in identifying the real resources that are needed to be able to respond to this huge problem at scale. Solving school WASH is not as simple as giving out a mosquito net or a Vitamin A tablet which are now being done at scale. But as a sector we have to start thinking bigger...

My view is based on my personal experience in Cameroon. One or two years ago UNICEF organized a national seminar in Yaounde with this big idea of bringing WASH closer to the people at grass-root level but since then I have heard nothing about WASH in Cameroon again. At least at the regional level where I am in the North West Region.

It is true that we need to mainstream some of these concepts in policies but the political environment differ in different countries. Going by policy in Cameroon will definitely take a long time and may even end on papers. I think that WASH in schools program needs to broaden its approach such that while it is pursuing the policy level or political level progress, some practical strategies should be put in place. I give the example of diplomatic missions which though are pushing the government to develop policies, at the same time it is supporting communities with what is known as small embassy grants. If the WASH in School program could make such facilities available to schools even on a competitive bases we could be talking of a number of sanitation and water facilities in many schools as well as changing habits.

There are equally NGOs who need just a little push and they will make the difference but the opportunities are not there.

Notwithstanding it is an important program which should be continued with improvement. There is already an outbreak of cholera in Cameroon now in almost all regions with thousands infected and hundreds dead.

It was considered in the beginning that the children could be the best messengers for hygiene practices and through them the messages could reach to the community effectively, and the the messages will be accepted by the community, therefore it was obvious to give priority for WASH facilities in the schools.Hence schools were provided with the infrastructure but without any monitoring mechanism in place to check whether the toilets are in use or whether there are any efforts made to educate and change the behavior of the children, which was very easy to do.It is has been also felt that the involvement of teachers which was taken as granted is very limited . Instead of going for behavior change of teachers and children, many toilets have been built which are serving not more than monuments.In schools toilets are hardly functional.Not a single school I have found where one can satisfy that the hand washing before MDM is taking place and more over there is less possibility of availability of safe drinking water, in many schools children bring there own water bottle.The whole idea of propagating in to the community through the school children has been failed.

Considering WASH in general, we have in Cameroon shameful statistics and facts: 1) Proportion of households having access to latrines (mainly traditional) is 73.8% (90.4% in urban areas and 66.5% in rural settings); 2) The North and the Far-North Provinces of the country are particularly dry. It is very common for people and flock to use the same watering hole. 3) Proportion (country-wide) of children of less than 5 years having a significant in-take of fluid during diarrhoea episodes is 23%. This is due to frequent shortages of water and lack of education on the management of diarrhoea.

Now, considering WINS, Most of the schools located in villages and suburban areas have no hygiene facilities (water points and latrines). In the North Province, 70% of schools with latrines have no water to clean the latrines, and only 40% of schools have access to potable water. Girls have to walk kilometres in search of water, thus forsaking school activities for domestic chores.

While some improvements have been noticed since 2004, in regard to the allocations of the State’s budget (22.68% to the Education sector as a whole – Preschool to tertiary), considerable efforts still need to be made to improve school infrastructure and hygiene facilities, especially in the UNICEF supported schools located in villages and rural areas of the East Province, the three northern Provinces (Far-North, North, and Adamawa) of the Great North, and those located in the suburban areas of Douala and Yaounde. The case is more critical in the above-mentioned 3 Northern Provinces where school children, especially girls, have to forsake classes to return to the family to use home latrines because the school has no separate latrines for girls. In addition to their regular domestic chores, girls in the rural areas of the Great North, before going to school also have to walk kilometres each day in search of water. Many children arrive late at school, tired and thirsty, and yet cannot hydrate themselves for lack of drinkable water in the school compound.

So. It is clear that we have failed. Let us recognise it and plan to do something. So this is what I propose as a remedial plan: 1) For hygiene promotion It must be recognized and highlighted that the provision of physical accommodations alone would not meet the aim of improved health, hygiene and environmental sanitation. It should not be expected that once the latrine is constructed, it would automatically be used. We need to put emphasis on sensitisation, on promotion sessions on the use, in addition to topical issues on hygiene and sanitation. This will help pupils and the community at large to build their capacities towards hygiene. 2) Strengthen Classroom Instruction on Health, Hygiene and Sanitation by including these themes transversally in the teaching of other subjects. To this end, school teachers and inspectors and other supervisors will be trained. Also, materials and communication tools would be developed for the programme. Alternatively, existing materials will be adapted, taking into account local specific situation. 3) Ensuring a Healthy School Environment will include, improving deficiencies in school environment and maintaining hygienic conditions notably as regards cleanliness, disposal of liquid and solid wastes, provision of clean water, and planting of trees and flowers. Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) latrine would be the technology of choice for latrine construction since this model is what is being encouraged for institutional latrine systems in Cameroon. The effective Involvement of Pupils and Communities will be a crucial point: Pupils Governments and school health clubs will be involved as well as community WASH facilities’ management committees

How many of us can honestly say?

See my first contribution (arguing perception of failure). How many of us can honestly acertain that of all schools ever visited in poor societies, a majority was offering the full menu of decent WASH services at the school (for boys and girls, well kept and maintained, provided with hand washing facilities, including soap or ash) ?

Thanks for all these ideas and experiences shared on Cameroon. I have much appreciated this sentence put forward by our colleague: >.

Indeed, Cameroon has developed lot of strategy documents: “Vision 2035” Strategy, was used to elaborate the national Growth and EmploymentStrategy (DCSE). The DCSE is result-oriented and focuses on growth and job creation. It describes the situation of women and girls in Cameroun, in terms of human development (including education), and also places special emphasis on the promotion of women and the youth. But, one of the key issues in Cameroon is the lack of reliable data, which makes it difficult to obtain gender disaggregated data to better identify and understand gender issues. Such data are also necessary for planning and monitoring. Disaggregated data are published periodically by the National Institute of Statistics on the occasion of the International Women’s Day.

It is clear that Projects that mainstream gender should systematically have a set of gender-sensitive quantitative and qualitative indicators in the logical framework. These indicators should be measured against baseline data to be identified at the appraisal stage of the project, which would allow for better monitoring and evaluation of the project gender related components and their impact. Many education projects support by donors address gender issues through generic activities such as the construction of separate latrines and classrooms equipment. However, for girls and boys who belong to the most disadvantaged groups these all-purpose measures may not have a positive impact on their school attendance. For this particular group, a study may be necessary to assess their situation in order to better address their specific needs.

I lost something in my previous intervention. In fact, I said that I appreciated the intervention of our colleague Atayong who stated that ''Going by policy in Cameroon will definitely take a long time and may even end on papers''. The rest of my arguments is without change. I simply reiterate that when made dispassionately and objectively the analysis of the situation, we realize that much was not done, while opportunities are present. Need to build on the existing. This construction must be driven by the Government which must take the lead and coordinate all interventions. WINS interventions are part of a dynamic set for a school safe and appealing. The capacities of the Government partners need to be developed accordingly.

Below is a link to a March 2011 report from the London School, CARE International and others:

What impact does the provision of separate toilets for girls at school have on their primary and secondary school enrolment, attendance

and completion? A systematic review of the evidence.

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/R4D/PDF/Outputs/SystematicReviews/Birdthistle_Separate_toilets_for_girls_20110331.pdf

We will add a link to this on Sanitation Updates and feature in an upcoming WASHplus Updates.

--

Dan Campbell

Knowledge Resources Specialist

WASHplus Project

1825 Connecticut Ave NW, 8th floor

Washington, DC 20009

Email: [email protected]

We have failed on WASH in Schools...

...is the title of this debate. Clearly the title suggests 'we' did, a hint? The problem is really with the 'we'. Who is responsible for WASH in schools? The director, the board, the department, the government, the parents, the kids (as of a certain age) ??? My take is that the prime responsible is government, starting at central and then down to lowest levels, in terms of facilitating awareness, offering solutions, subsidizing resources, offering information, accountability and transparency on the WASH situation in Schools in a country or local-government. If government is the prime 'we', driven by politicians, then it depends on the level of education and democracy (not always, see the Tigers in Asia) of populations i.e. citizens whether 'we' is failing or improving. If 'we' is the development mafia (of all sorts, more, or less mafia), then 'we', is my conviction, play only a minor role. Still whoever the 'we' is, at a global scale we, human beings, are still failing, even if progress is made at times (in a sustainable way? do we know? probably not!). - Peter

Thanks Sarah, to stress the issue of population growth. pupil: stance ratio might counteract or stall any statistics.

In terms of donors and other various initiatives, it must be always clear that no matter how many funds "we" collect and spend, it cannot be sufficient. Unless we don't have real government bye-in, and adress the issues Marielle mentioned above, we fail.

I want to throw in 3 questions here:

1. Which countries have adopted specific and adequate budget lines for WASH in schools (infrastructure + maintenance + hygiene education), that are also available to each school?

i am aware of a SWAP in Kenya, the "Kenya Education Sector Support Programme" which enables direct grants to schools for improvement of infrastructure. Unfortunately, schools still don't access enough funds to provide for soap, cleansing materials, toilet paper, which competes with other items on the small school budget. But it goes into the right direction. It would be interesting to read some experiences from the KESSP here.

2. Concerning ownership of the schools, to build and maintain and educate: During a trip to Kenya it was also interesting to discuss with SWASH+, who had a typical donor driven model (design, selecting and paying construction company) and a newly introduced model. In the later the school sanitation team decided how funds were spend, entirely managed the funds , and oversaw construction. the School headmaster was so enthusiastic "into" the project, no doubt he will make sure that the toilet will be build correctly and maintained. contrary to the conventional model school headmaster who was very passive. (it reminded me a bit on the shift in sanitation from supply to rather demand-led approaches) Is this later model happening widely?

and lastly:

3. as data is reported back from some countries on their pupil:stance ratio, isn't it really time to establish a global overview, similar like the JMP data but for WASH in Schools?

I am not aware of these in a document or on a website, because I was recently trying to gather figures for the SACOSAN school session, but failed. we all know JMP is powerful for advocacy and monitoring, so can be a WASHinSchools-JMP.

We have really failed on WASH in Schools, African as we know are undergoing a very serious transition, so is the humanitarian sectors, basically in Nigeria many Schools both nurseries, primaries, secondaries and universities are lacking the access to WASH and Hygienic sanitation's.

On the 1st Social dialogue hosted in Lagos state by Pan-African University on 1 December 2010, i made it clear that many social justice focuses on urban area while the rural communities are left without giving them attention. and i Score WASH/Sanitation in urban cities 57% and rural communities 2%. truly we have failed. from [email protected]

Have we failed or succeed in WINS?

If we talk about the emphasis of the concept, better documentation, highlighting the importance of WINS to play a big role in the society by given to children (future adult and citizen) all necessary skills and good habits for the life… I will say you have not failed, but if I take a look on the situation of analysis in a country like Cameroon (already develop by Brigitte), I will say it’s a failure because no one has the real lead on WINS and the coordination between all the government ministries in charge (basic education, water, health) remain a big challenge. This lack of leadership coupled to the lack of funding is a big handicap to develop strategies at policy level.

How can we say that we have succeeded if we have only 1 school/3 at national level with toilettes? And 2 schools out of 5 with potable water? The handwashing facilities are not included in the EMIS and when you have handwahing stations, the availability of soap is a big issue. If the basic infrastructures do not exist in school, how can we insure that children will develop expected skills so that they will be used as agent for change of behaviours for their peers, parents and all the community? And are we able to demonstrate these behaviour changes? The monitoring and evaluation of our interventions is still very weak.

The interaction between all the stakeholders needed to be reinforced: inside organisations between WASH and Education Programme and between all the stakeholders at different level.

So we are on the way, but we need to advocate strongly at high level in order to have a strong leadership and commitment of the government for WINS.

I would argue that, we failed due to following issues:

1. Un-coordinated efforts in covering schools for water and sanitation at all levels.

2. Project approach that failed in sustaining the efforts and no followup by the donor/implementing agency.

3. Incorrect reporting of data on the coverage of water and sanitation situation in school. Please read the article - http://vajpai.org/2011/03/30/re-viewing-jmp-on-mdgs/

4. Top-down approach by agencies in developing countries.

5. Failing to communicate safe water, sanitation and hygiene related messages up to the children in schools. Poor communication means / tools adopted by agencies promoting WASH in schools.

5. Poor monitoring mechanism, which is unreliable and no liability fixed on wrong reporting by government as well.

I will add one more example from one of the Indian province Bihar where BBC Correspondent Mike Thomson traveled in November 2010 to rural areas to meet the so-called manual scavengers whose work – removing human waste from dry latrines – has been outlawed by the government due to prejudice and abuse, but still exists in practice. Link to Dirty, horrible job’ of manual scavengers. You can see the interview at http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9174000/9174738.stm . If this is the situation in our villages, how we can imagine better in educational institutions where the same children from families are going to study..

Indeed we have failed on WASH in Schools. Imagine a country like Ghana, colonized by the United Kingdom, still constructing school blocks without toilets. We have the nice ideas on paper and the designs are WASH friendly and inclusive. Lamentably, these ideas and designs are not reflected during construction. This is not surprising though, as people still construct residential homes without provision for toilets in major cities and it appears the policy makers and Local Government authorities are powerless to enforce the laws. WASH in schools underpins behaviour change in the community and in the country as a whole as children are agents of change. Without mincing words, the insanitary environment. witnessed in most parts of the country could be attributed to failure on WASH in schools. Children spent most of their formative years in school and learn and adopt many good behaviours during these periods which they can demonstrate and/or advocate for when they occupy key strategic/responsible positions in society. Charity begins at home as the saying goes. Providing sustainable WASH services in school will bring enormous good returns to the built environment in Ghana. It will enhance school attendance of girls and maximise health benefits in our communities. Even though there is the awakening now, the Central/ Decentralized government must show more commitment, the Ministry of Education/Ghana Education Service has to provide policy direction and also to be delivery focused; and WASH sector actors must be more proactive to promote sustainable WASH services to schools.

In Central America it is clear that we have failed. Our partners estimate that approximately 30,000 of 40,000 rural public schools in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua lack adequate WASH conditions. Sadly most had them at one point in time.

WASH in Schools shouldn't be so complicated but it is - due to the reasons well described in this debate. The key challenges are:

a) poor maintenance due in part to lack of clarity on who exactly is responsible for it and who pays

b) lack of leadership of teachers and ministry of education officials to mandate and implement hygiene training in classrooms

c) lack of medium/long-term monitoring, and

d) inadequate WASH conditions at home.

These are some big IF'S but - IF we can achieve inclusion of school components in broader WASH initiatives and WASH components in broader educational initiatives, and get agreement on how to address a, b, and c above prior to investing more, we might not repeat this debate in 2021!

WASH in schools failed due to so many reasons that exist at the field level. Some the reasons are;

1. Introduction of irrelevant methodologies

2. Short-term interest of the implementing agencies

3. Poorly designed WASH programs

4. No or poor response of the government agencies

5. Existence of other critical issues in developing countries on school level