The Supreme Court has ruled that access to sanitation in schools is a right under the Right to Education and has asked the States to ensure separate access to toilets for boys and girls as well as access to clean water. Many companies, under their Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, are funding and building toilets in schools encouraged by the Central and State government.
This is not only a much needed initiative to provide a safe sanitation space for children in schools and anganwadis but also an excellent way of wiring the thinking of children to cleanliness and hygiene all around. Yet certain parameters must be kept in mind, particularly when outside funders and builders build toilets.
1. Always consult the school, the School Development Management Committee and the local government right from the planning stage in the design of the toilets. Do not make it a tokenism but a genuine effort.
2. Understand where the school teachers come from and help address their problem from the beginning. Sometimes there might be a water shortage, particularly in summer months, forcing the school to close the toilet doors. Ensure and help the school access round-the-clock water before you build toilets for them.
3. The technical designs should no doubt be robust and perfect i.e. pits should not fill up or pipes and P traps should not get clogged, rendering the toilet unusable. Remember, schools have very little funds or skills for maintenance. The design should therefore be as easy on maintenance as possible. Floors should be easily cleanable, taps repairable and lights replaceable.
4. Hand-hold the school for some time. After building the toilets, experience shows that you need to be around for three to five years to fix issues that may arise. Be easily accessible on the phone and create an ecosystem that will troubleshoot quickly. Toilets cannot be down for more than a day. Vandalism is a part of the process in many places especially during school holidays and must be managed.
5. Prepare to spend and make available the right expertise for usage. Toilet usage is a cultural thing and many will not know how to use it well. Teachers too are not trained to teach on usage. Make sure the right gender does the right teaching for correct usage.
6. Most toilets will be connected to soak pits or septic tanks. Make sure that there is a system in place to empty the pits or septic tanks using vacuum trucks. Easy access to the pits and septic tanks is a must and must be part of the design.
7. Toilets in anganwadis and in schools for small children is a different species altogether. Make sure that child friendly, universal access designs are adopted and built.
8. Toilets for adolescent girls must make suitable provision for menstrual health management including the provisioning of sanitary napkins, place to change, and safe and private disposal systems. There are social taboos around these subjects. Make sure they are discussed with the help of experienced people.
9. Hand-washing after toilet use and before eating with soap, clean filtered drinking water, clean water for cooking mid-day meals, clean water for washing plates and utensils and then the adequate disposal of the wash water must be part of the sanitation system.
10. Finally, while there are photo ops during inauguration the best reward is 100 % usage of the facilities by the students and their improved health and education.
