WASH Program in TS Schools, Safe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in schools refers to a combination of infrastructure (Hardware), its maintenance and behavior (Software) components that are necessary to produce a healthy school environment and to develop or support appropriate health and hygiene behaviors.
WHAT IS WASH IN SCHOOLS?
Safe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in schools refers to a combination of infrastructure.
Components of WASH:
1. Access to sufficient quantities of safe water for
– Drinking
– Hand-washing and personal hygiene
2. Sufficient water for:
– Cooking
3. Cleaning, flushing toilets, school gardens, etc
4. Toilet facilities that are:
– Child-friendly, gender-specific, culturally and environmentally appropriate, private, safe, and well maintained
5. Personal hygiene materials
– soap, sanitary pads, etc
6. Hygiene education
– Curriculum, lesson plans, role play, group activities, wall-paintings, competitions etc
7. Safe disposal of solid waste
8. Control measures to reduce transmission and morbidity of WASH-related illnesses
– Approaches to control vector-borne disease
– Diarrhoea prevention and management, De-worming campaigns, nutritional supplements
9. Human Resources
– A system of capacity building in place for administrators and teachers
– Teachers with WASH in Schools Orientation
– WASH in Schools on the agenda of the School Management Committee
10. Monitoring
– WASH in Schools embedded in the monitoring system of Swachh Patashala and SSA
Impacts related to WASH in Schools
Health
1. Diarrhoea
2. Soil-transmitted helminth infections
3. Trachoma, scabies
4. Acute respiratory infection
5. Impaired growth
Non-health
1. Educational attainment
– Absenteeism
– Attrition
– Concentration
– Test scores
2. Water availability
– Dehydration
3. Privacy and safety
4. Menstrual management
Long term impacts of WASH on students
1. Increases attendance and cognitive development
2. Children are more receptive to new ideas and can more easily change their behaviour and promote improved practices within their families and among their communities
3. WASH in schools fosters social inclusion and individual self-respect by offering an alternative to stigma and marginalisation
4. Handwashing with soap, particularly after contact with excreta, can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by over 44% and respiratory infections by 30%.
Wins Policy and Strategy
1. Right to Education Act (2009) guarantees separate toilets for girls and boys and safe and adequate drinking water in schools.
2. Supreme Court Order (2011): “It is imperative that all schools must provide toilet facilities; empirical researches have indicated that wherever toilet facilities are not provided in the schools, parents do not send their children (particularly girls) to schools’’.
3. A National Mission: Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya Mission, October 2014 – mandates an ‘essential package’ of WinS intervention
4. Swachh Telangana – Swachh Patashala, a State strategy to promote WASH in Schools
Why Schools?
1. Schools are an established entry point for learning
2. Children are fast learners and adapt their behaviours more easily than adults. Children are also effective role models.
3. What they learn at school is likely to be passed on to their peers and siblings, and to their own children if they become parents
4. Schools are a natural learning environment, making schoolchildren potentially more receptive to behaviour change and behaviour change education
5. Schools are also nodes of disease transmission and therefore should have systems in place to contain the spread of disease
Status of WASH in Telangana
– Around 29,000 schools in Telangana
– Approximately 28 lakh students
– More than 7700 toilets need to be constructed
– More than 6000 toilets need repairs
– Around 3200 schools need drinking water facilities