Equity in School Water and Sanitation

Overcoming Exclusion and Discrimination in South AsiaCountry Report BhutanSeries IntroductionThis series of five publications is the outcome ofa South Asia regional study into Equity in SchoolWater and Sanitation, commissioned jointly by theWASH and Education Sections of UNICEFRegional Office for South Asia (ROSA). The studywas carried out in four countries of the region –Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. Eachcountry has produced its own report, and thesehave been supplemented by a fifth report, whichsummarizes the country reports and expands thefindings into a regional perspective.This study was developed following a web-basedliterature search (Ollieuz, 2008) to collect evidenceabout different kinds of water and sanitation-basedexclusion and discrimination in schools in orderto obtain an overview of available evidence andalso to define areas which required more research.The search showed that although there isconsiderable anecdotal evidence on exclusionfrom and discrimination within school related toissues around water and sanitation, there is littlein the way of empirical research.The study therefore set out to examine theseissues of exclusion and discrimination in schoolsin South Asia and to consider the potential forschools being able to act as agents of change incombating this exclusion and discrimination. Theaim of the study was to:raise awareness both atGovernment and practitioner levelsof the part that issues related towater and sanitation play inchildren's exclusion from anddiscrimination within education,and to suggest actions which needto be taken at the level of policyand practice which would help toredress this situation.The overall objectives of the study were:i. To examine the relationship between water andsanitation related issues and the ways in whichthey affect, for both practical and psychologicalreasons, both the inclusion and theopportunities of children who belong to groupsthat are perceived as being unclean,menstruating girls and children affected bycommunicable diseases.ii. To identify and record instances of good andinclusive practice.iii. To explore the possibility of good practice inschools having a transformative role in alteringtraditional discriminatory practices within thecommunity.The method chosen for the study was qualitativeresearch. While qualitative research has certainlimitations in that it can only ever cover a smallsample of sites, the advantages are that it allowschildren's voices to be heard and their stories tobe told in a way which can never occur throughquantitative studies. In this way it highlights theoften subtle ways in which exclusion anddiscrimination can affect children and also pointsto actions which need to be taken so that exclusionand discrimination can be addressed andchanged.In three of the four countries, twelve schools inthree districts were carefully chosen for in-depthstudy (in India, 24 were chosen) and fieldresearchers spent periods of three days coveringthe schools and their communities (one day inprimary, one day in secondary and one day in thecommunity). Although these were very smallsamples, nevertheless, it was felt that the in-depthdiscussions could draw out findings which wouldbe more widely applicable.vii