Equity in School Water and Sanitation

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EQUITY IN SCHOOL WATER AND SANITATIONBox 3 Sahariya, a tribal community that experiences exclusionIn Lalitpur district, the difference between Sahariya and non-Sahariya habitations in the sample waspalpable. The community is recognized as a primitive tribe group in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan andChhattisgarh, and has been notified as a Scheduled Tribe by the Government of UP. Being seminomadichunter-gatherers, Sahariya do not belong to the regular agricultural community and theirlivelihood is dependent on selling forest products or working as daily wage labourers. Land holdings (ifthey have any) are small and hard to cultivate due to lack of proper irrigation facilities and other inputs.As a result many of them lease out their land to other farmers for very small amounts of money.Given its nomadic nature, the Sahariya community has remained one of the most difficult groups forthe various governmental schemes/provisions to reach out to. For instance, in LS5, despite the Sahariyahabitation being just across the primary and upper primary school, the percentage of Sahariya childrenpresent in the school was very low on the day of visit. According to the teachers, they stay absent fromschool for long periods at a stretch. Many of these children can be seen roaming outside the schoolcampus in their school uniforms. Except for such children, their hamlet bears a deserted look as mostof the families have migrated out in search of work, leaving behind the aged and children. As is evidentfrom school enrolment data, there is an exodus of Sahariya children from school after Class 5. Howeverit is extremely difficult to track school drop-outs as boys have migrated out and the girls have beenmarried off.For the handful of Sahariya children attending school, the situation is not very friendly as the exclusionfaced by the community at large extends inside the classroom too. Sahariya children are treated as‘unclean’ and continue to face discrimination both from other children and teachers. Non-school-goingadolescents talk openly about how Sahariya children are made to sit separately, or way behind in theclassrooms.Some teachers consider Sahariya children academically poor and not as bright as forward caste children.Overall, unhygienic conditions and poor facilities in the habitation are testimonies of the discriminatorypractices towards the Sahariya community.4.4 Senior Secondary Schools:Untouched by WATSAN or anysuch CampaignsSenior Secondary schools (one each from thethree categories – government, private aided andprivate unaided) had big but unkempt campuseswith poorly maintained buildings. As these cateredto 18–20 villages in an area, there were largenumbers of students enrolled. These childrenwere from families who could afford to spend oneducation, especially for girls. All studentsenrolled in a class are simply marked present,with perhaps the exception of those who havebeen absent for a long time. Teachers in theseschools confessed that they have to show fullattendance as the salaries of temporary teachersare worked out on that basis.Sanitary facilities were almost negligible in theseschools. Toilets, if present, were unclean, dirty andinadequate. Due to lack of running water, thesewere used more as urinals. The situation ofadolescent girls who come to secondary schoolsis affected by the poor infrastructure and sanitationfacilities. They have to exercise self-control whilein school, and absent themselves during menstrualperiods. They do not come to school for 3–4 daysevery month, except during examinations. Thereis no provision for disposal of sanitary napkins orrags.The situation in the government aided Inter Collegein MS4 (531 girls; 1,016 students in Classes 6-9)was seen to be really bad: there was no runningwater in the toilets, hence they were extremelydirty and smelly; they were also choked as they24
Overcoming Exclusion and Discrimination in South AsiaIndia Country Reportare not connected to any sewage drain; and therewas no light. To relieve themselves, the local girlswent home; the girls who came from far away usedthe toilet only in an emergency. The units for boyswere defunct, and all of them used the spaceoutside the boundary wall of the school as an openurinal. Drinking water was supplied through a tank,which was hardly ever cleaned so the childrennever really used its water for drinking; they usedit only for washing their hands. Similarly, in theprivate Inter College in MS5 (580 girls; 1,096students in Classes 6–9), the facilities were highlyinadequate, dirty and smelly. The three handpumps providing drinking water were segregatedfor the use of boys and girls.The government Inter College building in LS2 wasa new, large spacious campus with 25 classroomswith 1,498 children enrolled in Classes 6–12 (498girls), but had poor sanitation facilities. There wasa row of 60 toilets for girls behind the schoolbuilding, without any roof. Fifteen of these hadsome kind of a door (though opening on the wrongside) but not one of them was functional. Therewas no water source near the toilet. Here again,the girls stayed away from school during theirmenstrual cycles. During group discussions,adolescent boys said that they were moreconcerned about teaching and learning and thatthey really did not care if the school had a toilet ornot. The girls were more concerned about toiletfacilities and said that they had to miss school fora few days every month. The two women teacherssaid that they felt embarrassed to use the toiletbecause they had to pass through the principal’sroom.4.5 The Midday Meal and itsDynamicsCooking and sharing of food is a sensitive issuein some areas of India and also in UP, partly dueto traditional caste-related attitudes and practicesgoverned by rules of pollution and purity, and partlydue to the power dynamics between differentcommunities in a given area. The forward castes 26traditionally did not eat or drink with the erstwhileuntouchable communities. The caste dynamics ofthe village influence the school environmentincluding the socialization process amongst thechildren, as well as their relationship with theteachers. This influence gets overtly visible,particularly during meal time practices.As expected, the situation on the ground withrespect to the midday meal is mixed. At the outsetit is important to place on record that the middaymeal was being cooked and served in all thesample primary and upper primary schools. Thelocation of the kitchen, availability of water andoverall hygiene were different across the sampleschools (Table 10).Discussions with teachers and community leadersrevealed that, in most of the schools in Mirzapur,the cooks were not from the Dalit community; theenrolled children in the local schools were fromthe two dominant social groups – OBC and SC.The larger political environment in the district hasalso changed in the last five to ten years and castebasedexclusion is not looked upon favourably.Another probable reason for lack of overtdiscrimination is that the forward castes seem tohave migrated out of the village or they send theirchildren to private schools. Notwithstanding thisoverarching observation, the research teamnoticed that some children in a few schools didnot eat in school. When asked why, they said thatthe food was not cooked well or that the food wasnot adequate and it was not tasty. They did nottalk about caste.However, this was not the case in Lalitpur. As notedin the introductory chapter of this report, Lalitpuris one of the most underdeveloped districts of UP:poverty levels are high and feudal and casteistattitudes still prevail. Given the lack of developmentand slow progress on the economic andeducational front, local leaders confessed thatcaste and community identities remained strong.Not surprisingly, it was observed that caste issueswere dominant in the school lunch programme inthree of the sample primary and upper primaryschools. In one school (LS1 UPS) the upper caste(Thakur) children did not eat in school and other26Communities that have traditionally enjoyed a high status in society include Brahmins, who were traditional priests and thosewho learnt the scriptures; Thakurs, a land owning and ruling class who had the right to bear arms; Vaishs, the trading community;and Jains, also a trading community.25
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Equity in School Water and Sanitation

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