I joined, no questions yet??
I am currently part of a team working on WASH in School Standards for Jordan. Interesting experience. Especially since not much advocacy on WinS had been done in Jordan.


Annemarieke Mooijman

I would like to draw kind attention of the policy makers towards issues of the developing and under developed nations as per my experiences. The traditional and customary rules of dealing issues of HEALTH & HYGIENE especially in EDUCATION SECTOR are lost with the impact of modern or globalized policies. The policies with foreign (as treated by commoners) touch are not easily accepted by the general mass. If accepted then the practices associated with those trends are not followed due to which we find failure in SUCCESS of the policies.

As per my experiences in developing and under developed nations, I would like the international policy makers to work in the direction of respecting traditional practices in WASH Sector which are passed on through local customs and local knowledge inherited in the local communities.

I agree, but how can you make this to work in big countries with many different local customs and just one national schooling system??

It is due to the issue of big nation, mentioned that we have to take care of the local customary practices and with due respect policy makers should give the space to those traditional practices in WASH Sector. One policy will not solve the purpose as I experienced in India where due to different geographical, climatic conditions the single policy did not serve and need flexibility as per the local region.

Also, the people are more comfortable with their local customs and traditions and serve better than any other foreign / outside customs . In such conditions, on one side the target community would lose their customary practices and on the other side they would not able to follow the foreign/outside practices with the same line of action which these need to be.......

Dear all,

To encourage the ongoing discussion we would like to introduce some additional background information and leading questions. Building on the working group meeting during the Stockholm Water Week 2016, we would like to continue the fruitful discussion and get a better understanding of the challenges and needs of the education sector to successfully manage WASH in schools.

Two case study selections of the WG have been published over the last two years: “Making WASH in Schools more sustainable - case stories from SuSanA partners” Vol. 1 (2014) and Vol. 2 (2015):

www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2320

As a result of these publications, five sustainability criteria were proposed by the WG that are collated from cases around the world:

1. Promote Health and Hygiene Effectively
2. Protect Environment and Natural Resources
3. Technically Appropriate including Operation and Maintenance
4. Financial and Economically Viable
5. Socially Acceptable and Institutionally Appropriate.

Our discussion under the heading “Managing WASH in Schools – Is the Education Sector ready?” is especially focusing on the last criteria “Institutionally appropriate”.

The direct links of WinS to SDG2 (health), SDG6 (water and sanitation) and SDG4 (education) pose the chance for increased inter-sectoral cooperation. Thereby, the education sector’s leadership and management are critical to broad-scale implementation and success of WinS.

Yet, how is the education sector taking WASH on board?
How can the WASH sector support the education sector?
What does it take for better-managed WinS?
What shifts/changes are necessary to see the situation change?

One common theme in many places is that cooperation between school employees and local government structures works semi-officially at the local level more or less well, but when you start talking about scaling up something it immediately becomes (paraphrasing) "no, but that is the Ministry of Education’s/Ministry of Local Government's responsibility/budget and vise versa etc.". So things usually only go to a certain level and then are strangled by bureaucratic red-tape.

Edit: As a way forward, are there examples where this cooperation works better, or maybe examples of a joint fund of some sorts? At least here in the Philippines the elementary school is (next to the church and an open air basketball court) often the main community infrastructure in the small villages. Therefore it plays a quite vital role in daily community life and should therefore not seen as a separate structure managed by the Education sector only.

Lack of coordination between WASH sector and education sector is one of critical issues in this area.

Also be noted that in Government's side, KPI (Key Performance Indicator) of WASH program is addressed to WASH sector not education sector, where access to WASH by " number of student" is not be accounted as global/national WASH target, it makes WASH sector more interest to provide WASH facilities in household level not school level.

Other issue is knowledge and capacity level of teacher to promote and endorse tangible benefit of the presence of WASH facilities for student health growth, is limited.

thanks
dn

If we viewed policy as a ‘framework’ to allow things to get done, in your scenario of balancing local customs with overall national policy, what could work? It is a question of balancing local autonomy to manage schools but at the same time providing an overall framework or structure at national level to ensure equity. Why should a child in one area suffer because the local customs do not support schools as in another area? How can policy incorporate local customs and also ensure sustainability and equity? I would like to state again, what happens if local customs do not support equity, sustainable sanitation- then is it not possible for national or international policies to provide the framework or structure or at least basis for development?

Lack of coordination is often cited as a problem- for many years in WINS! How can policy at national or even global levels address this? Is it even possible? Can we make people 'talk' together, let alone institutions? What sort of incentives would get institutions to talk and work together? Is it about more money or who has the money????

Kindly take my note into consideration that the local customs regarding waste management need to be understood. The policy makers can't take those customary actions which rule out the options of schools with sanitation facilities. as per my experience in India, we have none of the customs which deny those policy which deals with WATSAN at any educational institutes. What I mean to state is that policy makers have to consider the local customs and take the best out of those.

Education policies, in developing and developed countries focus on educational aspects which is normal but tend to minimize or to forget other aspects which are equally important to educational achievements of children: health, nutrition and facilities.

These aspects should be integrated to any education policy. It is equally important that children have access to adequate sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools but also that they are provided with a proper meal, that classrooms are adequately furnished and that they get regular health check ups linked to learning abilities.

If we decide to tackle WinS, then it should not be treated individually but together with the other components from policy, planing, institutional share of responsibilities and budgeting.