hat most often the facilities are poorly designed, poorly constructed, poorly used and poorly managed, making, for example, the use of school toilets an unpleasant experience for most children and teachers. I also have to admit that many of us stakeholders involved in school WASH do not have a strong understanding of how facilities can be designed to make them more user-friendly and easier to manage and maintain. These designs don’t have to be so complex. First of all when children visit the toilet (at least in our Malawi experience) most want to urinate not shit. Urinals are essential component of school WASH as they make toilets less crowded, less messy, less smelly, and they are cheaper to construct per post than toilets and can accommodate more children per unit time than toilets. When it comes to toilet design, it is almost always a dark, smelly pit latrine, with a squat hole that is neither of the right size or the right position (and these will be considered to contribute to the total tally). It is also easy to make a couple of the girls’ toilets a bit bigger to accommodate changing, and also perhaps a friend who can accompany the girl. It’s also amazing to think that teachers’ toilets are often forgotten and then the teachers have to commandeer a student’s toilet, which then makes the student per toilet ratio even higher. Shouldn’t teachers’ toilets should be a little more special to uplift the status of teachers.
It appears odd that JMP does not admit that shared toilet facilities are “improved” because of the (I think sometimes false) assumption that shared facilities are not always well managed, and yet we know that many, if not most school toilets facilities are not well managed.
One tool that I have found useful is the Service Delivery Approach that is developed by IRC, and can be easily adapted to school WASH – this has 4 criteria of access, durability, usability and environment.
School have many demands – toilets being only one of them. Many parents find it strange that partners can invest thousands of dollars on school toilets when classrooms are dilapidated, there are not desks, no books etc, so we also have to have a bit of proportion when we are designing and investing in school WASH. Quite a challenge!
So will the indicators tell us how many children and teachers are happily using nice clean toilets? I am afraid not.
Side: No they are not
I support Annemarieke's views that the indicators need to be realistic and measurable. It doesn't look like with this wish list (though I assume the "long list" is meant to create debate and to be narrowed down).
In addition, I think the WASH sector should fully focus on WASH at the community/ household level and hence set only targets for household/ communities. WASH in Schools issues need to be tackled by the Education Sector as part of Quality Education/ Child Friendly Schools etc. Without the Education Sector taking the lead, it isn't gonna be sustainable. Therefore, I would prefer to see WASH in Schools targets as part of Education Sector targets. And because children are part of homes, communities and schools, the WASH Sector and Education Sector should coordinate their efforts AND targets, so indeed improvements at household/ community level and in schools go hand in hand.
Side: No they are not
I fully agree that the WASH and the Education Sector must collaborate on defining WASH in Schools indicators. However, moving (all of) the targets to the Education Sector may not be practical. First, the actual provision of water and sanitation services is a responsibility of the service provider, who generally provides these services to domestic, institutional and business customers. Secondly, the human right to water and sanitation also extends to schools. Schools can be made responsible for the plumbing side of things (toilets, washstand installation and maintenance) but water supply and waste removal lie with service providers.
Side: Yes they are