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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Toilets are key to good education-aid agencies by Emma Batha


As millions of children around the world start school this month, many are discovering something critical is missing. It's not teachers or textbooks - it's toilets.

Poor sanitation doesn't just cause high rates of illness and absenteeism, but it also affects a child's intelligence, aid agencies say, with research showing that diarrhoea and worm infestations can lower IQ.

Sanitation is one of the most wildly off-track targets under the United Nations' anti-poverty goals which world leaders are reviewing in New York this week.

Nearly two thirds of primary schools in developing countries do not have proper sanitation and more than half do not have access to safe water, according to aid agencies.

Each year children lose 272 million school days due to diarrhoea and an estimated one in three school-aged children in the developing world are infested with intestinal worms.

Aid agencies are now cranking up pressure on governments and donors to ensure all schools are built with proper latrines and clean water.

"It doesn't matter how good the education is - if children are forced to miss school," says John Sauer, spokesman for Water Advocates.

Studies also show that repeated bouts of diarrhoea and worm infestations damage a child's cognitive development and IQ, not least because they prevent the absorption of food at a time when the brain is developing rapidly.

The average IQ loss per worm infestation is 3.75 points, according to the World Health Organisation.

"UNFASHIONABLE GOAL"

Under the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the world has pledged to halve the proportion of people living without basic sanitation by 2015.

But at the current rate, sub-Saharan Africa will not meet this target for another 200 years, says aid agency WaterAid.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, writing in the New York Times, describes sanitation as possibly the "least fashionable" MDG target.

"No one likes to talk about disposal of human waste," she says. "But the lack of adequate toilets is one of the greatest untold development challenges facing the international community."

Aid agencies say good sanitation plays a key role in achieving many of the eight MDGs - most notably reducing childhood mortality and ensuring universal primary education.

GIRLS DROP OUT

Proper latrines and clean water make a huge difference to school attendance, says Water Advocates' Sauer.

He cites one school in Ghana which saw attendance rise from 46 students to 400 after a borehole well was put in. A sanitation programme at another school in India increased girls' enrolment by a third.

The lack of toilets has a particularly disastrous effect on girls' education. Without latrines and clean water girls reaching puberty will miss school during their period or drop out altogether.

WaterAid says it costs an average of £15 ($23) a person to enable them to access safe water and sanitation. But the benefits are far reaching. A U.N. report shows that for every $1 invested in sanitation and water there is an $8 return in productivity.

"With access to safe sanitation and water, access to education increases and the community becomes more healthy and productive," says WaterAid policy analyst Yael Velleman.

"Increasing access to sanitation and water is crucial for eradicating poverty globally."

In mid-October a coalition of nearly 30 aid organisations will gather in Washington to urge policy makers and donors such as the U.S. Government and the World Bank to make sanitation in schools a priority.

Sauer says donors and governments increasingly recognise the importance of education in breaking the cycle of poverty, but often think it's enough to provide classrooms and teachers.

"We're saying keep focussing on education but while you do it don't forget about the washroom. You can't build a school without sanitation and hygiene facilities because that will undermine your ability to educate."

"It's almost negligent," he adds. "No school in the UK would ever not have a toilet. They'd get shut down immediately."