“Wash your hands before you eat,” says a notice in a southern school, promoting hygiene among students but ironically many schools just do not have water and sanitation facilities, a recent survey has found.
The schools are brightly painted and have neat gardens, garbage disposal systems, compost bins, notices on hand-washing but toilets and water seem scarce commodities, the survey conducted in the Matara district has revealed.
A random sample of 35 schools with a student population of 18,391 and a teacher cadre of 1,206 from the district, the Sunday Times understands, brings to the fore deplorable conditions – not a single school was without water and sanitation issues and nearly half the total number of toilets in these schools were unusable.
Many schools have broken, dirty and unsafe toilets and a limited water supply while some have neither water nor sanitation, said water activist Kusum Athukorala, the Chairperson of NetWwater and Vice Chairperson of Sri Lanka Water Partnership, whose organization carried out the survey in June and July.
These pathetic findings comes as Sri Lanka prepares to host the South Asia Conference on Sanitation in April next year.
“Without these basic necessities, not only schoolchildren but also teachers run the risk of illness. They refrain from drinking water during school hours to avoid going to the toilet and may suffer long-term kidney related complications. The lack of poor sanitation in particular affects adolescent girls during menstruation thus compelling them to absent themselves from school,” she said, stressing that water sanitation and hygiene are directly linked to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and recognized as a fundamental human right.
The other issues in these schools included cleanliness with a clear indication that schools with fewer children and teachers had cleaner toilets. Urinals were poorly maintained with mud, leaves, stones and tyres strewn around. Some of them were sans roofs as well doors, preventing girls from using them.
Looking at the larger picture of the Matara district which comprises the education zones of Matara, Akuressa, Mulatiyana and Morawaka, having 350 schools, she says 224 have a water supply to the toilets and 289 sanitation facilities.
Questioning Sri Lanka’s priorities, Ms. Athukorala pointed out that the school census of 2007 had also been an eye-opener on the situation in the whole country. The census had found that of the 10,000 schools, 3,658 did not have adequate sanitation facilities while 2,373 had no drinking water facilities. UNICEF data also indicates that 20% of schools lack adequate safe water and sanitation facilities, with most being dubbed “primitive and unhygienic”.
When contacted by the Sunday Times, the Southern Provincial Director of Education Kithsiri Liyanagamage assured that the situation will change soon under a sanitation and water project being implemented in the province.
Conceding that ideally there should be a toilet for every 25 students, he said these facilities will be upgraded in the Hambantota district with Korean aid and in the Matara and Galle districts with World Bank aid.
A detailed study is now being carried out and 90% of the issues will be resolved by April 2011, he added. |
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