Dear Mughal,

It could be preferably to understand, implementation maintenance part in schools. With expriences it is evident to work with change of attitude for practice. "when you talk they won't listen and when listen, they don't understand and when they understand, they won't practice"
The best part attitude are to be included in study curricula. In my opinion, "Massaging the messages".


There would be a change.
regards
Er M S Khan

Dear Mr. Khan,

I fully agree with your viewpoint. Yes, functionality, sustainability, operation and maintenance are the important adjuncts that should be taken into consideration.

Regards,

F H Mughal

Dear Mughal,

Uprightly you have brought the initiative by Govt. of Maharastra. But the fact is toilets would be available in the schools, what about functionality, operation and maintenance and sustainability. These are hidden factors to compete the system. Do you feel it would be. The O&M is the toughest challenges facing by enormous schools. The methodology for the same are to be devised for better sanitation prospects in schools.
thanks with regards
Er M S Khan
State Consultant UNICEF Wash in schools

School sanitation is a major problem in developing countries. According to the Times of India, almost 300 schools in state (Karnataka) have no separate toilets (timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengalu...cleshow/50351915.cms).

According to the news, “And where there are toilets, they are either in a shabby state or shut. Raghunath Gowda Patil, an RTE activist, told TOI, "About 50% of the toilets in government schools of Gadag district are always locked up as as they are in a bad shape.” “20% of girls have stopped going schools due to bad toilets and lack of them.”

Lack of toilets for girls leads to the high drop-out rates. As is noted above, 20 per cent of girls stop going to school, due to lack of toilets.

Moving on to the community level, a report (www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/1...-healthy-rural-india) talks of a new $1.5 billion World Bank program that will support the Government of India in implementing the rural component of the Clean India Mission.

The program will help accelerate results in India’s states by giving them performance-based incentives. “Implementation on the ground will be monitored. A national sample-survey of rural sanitation will be conducted every year by independent third-party agencies. Sanitation improvements will be measured in terms of the number of rural people who have stopped open defecation, sustaining the open defecation-free status of villages, and achieving improvements in solid and liquid waste management.” “The project will promote behavior change among rural communities and help accelerate results in India’s states by giving them performance-based incentives.”

Promotion of behavioral change is essential if success is to be achieved. However, there are two important issues. As noted by Mr. Imad above, maintenance and hygiene is more important than the installation of toilets because people will stop using them if the hygiene is bad and the toilets are left in terrible conditions. Likewise, a important point has been highlighted by Mr. Uzair Shah, above, when he says: “we found it every difficult to push them to be clean and keep your environment clean.”

Thus, in addition to behavioral change, it has to be established as to who will maintain the toilets in hygienic conditions, knowing fully well that it is very difficult to push people to keep toilets clean.

F H Mughal

Dear Mr Mughal,

Thank you very much for the useful info. I must say that the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is taking good step to increase the enrollment in Government School. But i doubt that their strategy is short term and that is just because of the lack of facilities they provide and one of the major facility is TOILETS.

Even they provide the Toilets how and who is going to keep them hygienic? This is a big question mark and needs to be considered as top priority.

Being a NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION we are working on WASH especially in government school.
Giving them Hygiene education again and again, we found it every difficult to push them to be clean and keep your environment clean.

They should add 1 more position in every school and that is of a cleaner. I think it will definitely put financial burden but will put very positive impact.

Lets pray and work hard together that one day we will achieve our objective.

Thank and regards,

Syed Mohammad Uzair Shah
Chief Executive
Social Transformation And Rehabilitation Organization
STARO

Thank you Mr. Mughal for the info and comments.

I do agree that maintenance and hygiene is more important than the installation of toilets because people will stop using them if the hygiene is bad and the toilets are left in terrible conditions.

According to the Indian newspaper, Times of India (timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Mahara...cleshow/50162506.cms), the Maharashtra government (India) takes stringent steps for toilets in schools. The government has advised all states to ensure that all the schools, including those under the non-Government sector (private, aided schools etc.) must comply with the provision contained in Schedule to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 which states that every recognized school should have separate toilets for boys and girls.

Having worked for over 3 decades in government departments here, I can say for sure that this is a major step for provision of toilets in schools. It is not easy here to seek a notification from the government for toilets in schools. Just having a government notification is a major step. This might not be so in developed countries.

Toilets in schools, especially in the rural areas here, are in pathetic conditions. In most cases, there are no separate toilets for girls. As the result, the girls have to wait till the school time is over, go home and attend to toilets needs. Since all girls cannot do it, there is a significant dropout rate.

After notification, a major step in itself, comes the second stage that of implementation and taking action.Though a difficult step, due to evasive attitude of institutions, availability of funds is important for the construction of toilets.

Once constructed, the next step, which is equally important, is that of maintaining the toilets in clean hygienic conditions.

The Maharashtra government deserves credit for realizing the importance of toilets in schools.

F H Mughal