Teaching by example : promoting hygiene education and sanitation in primary schools

A 1992 study of 22 public primary schools in Madras, India, indicates that staff and children have a useful role to play in the promotion of improved water supply and sanitation conditions in schools. This article highlights this issue which the International Water and Sanitation Centre hopes will serve as a starting point for programme improvement in other schools. The 22 schools are described emphasizing the overcrowding, the lack of latrine facilities, and the shortage and impurity of the water supply which leads to a high incidence of infectious diseases. The article points out that although all teachers in the Madras area are trained in hygiene and environmental sanitation and most children are aware of the relationship between poor water and sanitation conditions and poor health, sanitary conditions and practices remain poor except in three "promising" schools in each of which one teacher has taken the initiative to motivate the rest of the staff to improve conditions and to foster hygiene education. The article outlines the specific steps taken in these three schools to improve water supply, sanitation conditions, and hygiene education and to involve the children in all hygiene activities. It points out that although the problems in all 22 schools are the same, the teachers in the three innovative schools have looked for simple solutions using the existing capacities and resources within the schools and that their attitudes and actions have been the key to improving school conditions.