Past Mistakes and Current Challenges

Unfortunately the promises of school health and hygiene education programmes have not always been fulfilled. In many countries schools are not safe for children due to neglect of the operation and maintenance of facilities. In addition there has been a lack of hygiene education for the students. These schools often suffer from:

• Non-existent or insufficient water supply, sanitation and handwashing facilities;
• Broken, dirty and unsafe water supply, sanitation and handwashing facilities;
• Toilets or latrines that are not adapted to the needs of children, in particular girls;
• Children with poor hand washing habits and practices;
• Non-existent or irrelevant health and hygiene education;
• Unhealthy and dirty classrooms and school compounds.

Table 3 gives a checklist for the kind of problems that can be found in many schools. Under these conditions schools become unsafe places where diseases are transmitted (WHO, 1997). Poor health of children affects their ability to learn and therefore influences their prospects in life. A study by Nokes et al (1992), for example, shows that children with worm infections have lower marks in schools than non-infected children. Basically this means that children with heavy worm infections begin at a disadvantage and have a slower start in the learning process. These children have only a few years of opportunity to benefit from a formal education.

Table 3. The 'reality picture' Sanitation and Hygiene Education in many schools today

An unhealthy physical environment

• Compound and classrooms often not clean;
• Toilets that do not work and are kept in poor conditions (e.g. faecal matter around the toilet);
• Lack of convenient hand washing facilities;
• Lack of safe drinking water.

Passive and disorganised children

• Lack of clean and convenient use of water and sanitation facilities by all children and teachers;
• Lack of consistent and organised cleaning and maintenance of toilets, hand washing and drinking water facilities by all children;
• Lack of roles for older children to help and monitor younger children in using facilities and maintaining school cleanliness;
• If children/teachers contribute, tasks are often unevenly divided.

Untrained and lack of committed school personnel

• Head teacher and key teachers have not been trained/oriented;
• Hygiene education is not part of the curriculum;
• Lack of learning in the classroom which is relevant and strives to be child-centred;
• Educators not making or carrying out any programmes for organising children in use, monitoring and maintenance of facilities and in personal hygiene;
• No organisation in school and for hygiene and health, school health clubs, parent health clubs.

Links to home and community

• Few or no key health and hygiene information and behaviours transferred to the homes of the children;
• Children and school set poor examples;
• No programme is centred around the community for special activities related to health and hygiene;
• Families and community do not provide finance and other support for maintenance and repair of school facilities.