Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Standards for Schools in Low-cost Settings
Children's ability to learn may be affected by inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene conditions in several ways. These include helminth infections (which affect hundreds of millions of school-age children), long-term exposure to chemical contaminants in water (e.g. lead and arsenic), diarrhoeal diseases and malaria infections, all of which force many schoolchildren to be absent from school. These guidelines deal specifically with water, sanitation and hygiene, and are designed to be used in schools in low-cost settings in low- and medium-resource countries to:
- assess prevailing situations and plan for required improvements
- develop and reach essential safety standards as a first goal; and
- support the development and application of national policies.
The guidelines are written for use by education managers and planners, architects, urban planners, water and sanitation technicians, teaching staff, school boards, village education committees, local authorities and similar bodies.