School Sanitation and Hygiene Education School Sanitation Support Project

SUMMARY:

India has experience of school sanitation programmes primarily centred on toilet blocks and water sources. School sanitation programmes have been centred on toilet blocks and water sources and has not been impressive. This usually led to a situation where facilities were not maintained and used.

Neither was there any component of hygiene & health education in the design to support the hardware component. As a result, planned investments were often not used effectively and there was little demonstrable impact. To assist State Governments to improve this situation, XXXXXXX and Government of India now plan to develop a school sanitation support project that includes a well balanced mix of infrastructure and education awareness aspects.

Through this support project, XXXXXX, NGO and Government, UNICEF will collaborate to develop, test and successfully demonstrate replicable models for hygiene education, water supply and environmental sanitation in rural primary schools and pre-schools, building on the past experiences in UNICEF  and Government collaboration in school sanitation. The support project will have the IRC, International Water and Sanitation Centre, Netherlands as a key partner who will provide technical and resource support with an emphasis on participatory methodologies.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Present situation

India has approximately more than 600,000 primary schools in the rural areas. Of these it is estimated that only one in ten schools has adequate toilets and urinals, while safe water is available for just one of every two schools. In upper primary schools the situation is slightly better. Around two third have drinking water, 48 percent urinals and more than 30 percent have separate urinals for girls.

There is at present no school sanitation programme in the country. Toilets and urinals are all too often not considered much of a priority. Where these are constructed, it is usually at the initiative of the school teachers, the block or district administrations, or, occasionally, at the behest of the households whose children attend the school. External support projects, such as the World Ban supported district, Primary Education Project and others, also include school sanitation elements, but none are properly integrated to improve school hygiene practices.

In the Rural Water Supply Programme, district, block and village administrations all play a role in determining the sites for water supply points. Primary schools are given only a moderate degree of priority when supply points are decided. The Tenth Finance Commission offers another source of funding for improving the water supply and sanitation facilities at schools. The Tenth Finance Commission recommended a total of Rs. xxx crore as special assistance to provide drinking water facilities in primary and upper primary schools and Rs. xxx crore for toilets for girls in upper primary schools. These funds are managed by the State Education Departments, which usually rely on the State Water Supply Agencies for construction, through deposit work.

There are even fewer sources of funding to assist rural primary schools in obtaining basic toilets and urinals. The Rural Sanitation Programme guidelines do not allow provisions for school sanitation, although there are plans to change this in the near future.

Past school sanitation projects often had a focus on hardware aspects. This usually led to the situation where facilities were not maintained and used. Where software aspects, such as hygiene education, were included in the school curricula, often conventional methods of teaching book knowledge were used, without active participation of the students and without a linkage to improvement, use, maintenance and monitoring of the water supply and sanitation systems in primary schools. As a result, planned investments were often not used effectively. To improve this situation, UNICEF and Government of India now plan to develop a school sanitation support project that includes a well-balanced mix of hardware and software

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The project will focus initially on four districts in two/three States, covering approximately 500 primary schools and 250 Anganwadi centres per district. Implementation of the project will centre on School Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSH). The project will include capacity strengthening of all stakeholders involved.

The overall objective of the project is to develop, test and successfully demonstrate a replicable model for hygiene education, water supply and environmental sanitation in rural primary schools and pre-schools. Specific objectives are:

• To make visible the value and impact of school sanitation as perceived by community and thereby raise level of ownership.
• To promote the importance of school sanitation at national, state, and district levels;
• To improve hygiene practices in school children and through children in the families and community.
• To develop, test, establish and improve curriculum, teaching aids and teaching programmes;
• To promote family and community involvement in the sustainability of water and sanitation facilities in schools.

PROJECT STRATEGIES:

The project will be based on a partnership approach. The project will commence with a participatory assessment of the current UNICEF-assisted school sanitation projects in UttarPradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Kamataka and Tamil Nadu. This participatory assessment will include identification of local constraints, key risks and practices that need improvement. The findings, conclusions and recommendations of these assessments, combined with global knowledge of effective approaches, in school sanitation, will allow the partners to jointly plan, implement and monitor improvements. Participatory tools and techniques will be used in all stages.

The project will include health and nutrition interventions besides water and sanitation related interventions.

Throughout the project a gender equality approach will be followed, specifying and monitoring in all activities how women and men will be affected.

GOAL:

More primary school students and teachers (especially among the poor communities) adopt improved hygiene behaviors, use safe water supplies and hygienic toilets, and in a sustainable manner in the two/three project States.

MEASURABLE INDICATOR

In the school sanitation areas, after four years of implementation:

• The percentage of primary school * students and teachers using toilets/urinals increased to 80%.
• The percentage of primary school students and teachers daily washing their hands with soap or ashes in the school, increased by 50% points.
• The percentage of primary schools using water from a protected source increased to 95%.
• 80% of the water and sanitation facilities are in good condition.

PROJECT OUTPUTS

• 80 percent of 250 anganwadis and 500 primary schools per district have improved water and sanitation facilities with regular maintenance system.
• 80 percent students and teachers know the benefits of and regularly use the facilities
• 50 percent of students and teachers have conveyed sanitation and hygiene concepts and messages to their families/communities.
• Participatory assessment of learning projects carried out.