An Inclusive Approach for School Sanitation & Hygiene Education (Technical Note Series)

School sanitation programme is an important component of the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) which aims at providing sanitation facilities for schools and thereby at changing the behaviour of children at a young age. It has gathered momentum in India in the last few years, and the country has made significant progress in terms of providing a toilet and urinal in every school. Functional sanitation and water facilities are now recognised as an integral part of the ”quality package” in schools. The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) – the national umbrella programme for school education, are increasingly focussing on improving school environment and influencing hygiene behaviour of students.
 
The experience from the field with implementation of School Sanitation programme necessitated review of the existing designs of school toilets and urinals to make them more user and maintenance-friendly, inclusive and gender sensitive. Various rounds of consultations took place between the representatives from Government of India (Departments of Elementary Education and Drinking Water Supply), UNICEF’s education and WES sections, and technical experts resulting in a consensus on the norms that ought to guide the development of new designs, and the fetures of the document in which the designs would be presented, keeping in mind the final users. Consulting architects then worked on the document in close consultation with officials of DDWS and UNICEF.
 
This document has three parts: the first part discusses the features of the SSHE programme in the national context; the second part describes in detail the key principles which must guide construction of sanitation and drinking water facilities in schools and provides a tool for making decisions; the third part provides detailed engineering drawings (plan, layout and section drawings) and estimates for 16 different basic core designs.
 
This technical note is intended primarily for programme implementers to help them understand the critical need for proper school water and sanitation facilities and to sensitise them to the guiding principles that should be followed while planning for these facilities. Gender, expandibility, inclusiveness, strength of students and space availability are some of the key design parameters used. The scope of this document has been made as comprehensive as possible by including discussion on several aspects of school environment such as solid and liquid waste management, rain water harvesting and availability of running water inside the sanitation complexes.

Table of Contents:

Part I. Basic Concepts
Introduction
Section 1 Initiatives on SSHE
Section 2 Elements of SSHE
Section 3 Key Lessons from programme implementation

Part II. Norms and Guiding Principles
Section 1 Physical infrastructure under SSHE
Section 2 Norms for basic water and sanitation facilities in schools
Section 3 Guiding Principles of Designing of School Toilets Blocks
Section 4 Key Data Required to Design Toilet Blocks
Section 5 Other Important Interventions for maintaining Clean Environment in schools

Part III. Preparatory Planning, Designs and Estimates
Introduction
Section 1 Preparatory planning for sanitation facilities in school
Section 2 Understanding the designs
Section 3 Design Selection Tool
Section 4 Designs
Section 5 Good Designs from States