Equity in School Water and Sanitation

6Overcoming Exclusion and Discrimination in South AsiaIndia Country ReportConclusions and Recommendationsfrom a Regional PerspectiveThis chapter provides the Conclusions andRecommendations from the Regional Perspectivedocument, which summarizes the findings for allthe country studies and goes beyond to raiseissues that need to be addressed by thoseoperating at the level of national policy, by thoseinvolved in implementation, and at school level.Thus the Conclusions and Recommendations forIndia from the previous chapter can be seen herein a wider regional context.6.1 ConclusionsThe UNICEF study points to several conclusions,some of which reflect earlier findings of the initialliterature study and others which differ to someextent from these findings. While someconclusions are inevitably specific to individualcountries others reveal messages which pertainacross the four countries.An overall conclusion which can be drawn is thatlack of access to water and sanitation does notappear on its own to be a reason for permanentexclusion of children from school, although it mightwell provide a contributory factor. Most childrensaid that if they had the opportunity to study thenthey would, and that teachers turning up regularlyand teaching well were what made it worthwhilecoming to school. This emphasis on theimportance of seeing water and sanitation issueswithin the overall context of quality education isimportant. The India report in particular expressesconcern that the lack of coordination betweenthose involved in water and sanitation and thoseinvolved in education can create ‘one-dimensionalpreoccupations’ with some individual schoolsbecoming a showcase for cleanliness to thedetriment of children’s learning.However, parallel to this, the study revealed clearevidence that decent water and sanitation facilitiesdid certainly make a difference to the quality ofchildren’s experience. It also showed how, despiteexamples in all countries which contradicted this,there were still many examples both of somechildren being temporarily excluded from schoolbecause of inadequate facilities (this wasparticularly an issue for menstruating girls) andalso of discrimination playing itself out in thedomains of water and sanitation and of perceptionsof cleanliness and uncleanliness.Sufficiency and maintenance offacilitiesAlthough the prime purpose of this study was toexamine whether certain children werediscriminated against in relation to water andsanitation, this could not be ascertained without aprior examination of the sufficiency and adequacyof facilities. The research showed very largevariations within all four countries. In all fourcountries, although the schools were selected onthe basis that they had been supplied with waterand sanitation facilities, there were many instancesof schools which had insufficient access both tosafe drinking water and to toilets. The result wasthat many children went without water and choseeither to go home or go outside the schoolpremises to defecate. There also appeared to beuncertainty as to who had responsibility formaintenance of facilities with the result that manyhad been inoperable for some time.While some facilities in all countries were reportedas being well maintained and clean, many otherswere described as very dirty with no equipmentbeing provided for cleaning and no soap or towelsfor children’s handwashing. The result was thatchildren were loath to use school toilets. In all37