Equity in School Water and Sanitation

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