Diarrheal
disease, the second largest killer of children under five accounts for 760,000 deaths
annually (WHO).
Faecal material often comes into a child’s environment, and the most effective
way of reducing the likelihood of a child contracting a diarrheal disease is to
prevent this from happening (Cutis,
2003).
The key
to promoting change in attitudes towards sanitation and hygiene hinges upon
education. Children have the most potential to influence these changes. Sanitation and safe hygiene practices can be taught at schools.
Children can be taught safe practices, which can benefit themselves and then be
relayed at home to benefit their families.
A
study carried out by Stanton and
Clemens (1987) found that even simple education on sanitation and
hygiene proved important in reducing the rates of diarrheal disease. Further studies by Freeman
et al (2012) found implementation of WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene)
projects in schools led to a 58% reduction in absenteeism of girls.
It
is clear that often, even the most basic sanitation and hygiene practices are
being disregarded. However, with some simple changes and education, children in
Africa can benefit greatly. Schools can provide a clean and safe platform for
children to be taught basic sanitation and hygiene practices.
However,
the World
Bank notes a number of key points that will determine the success of education
of hygiene and sanitation practices in school. Schools must have appropriate
technology that suits the needs of children. Most importantly, there must be effective
institutional framework to make this a reality, relying on the coordination of both education
and health sectors of government to ensure a more comprehensive and
effective provision of education on sanitation and hygiene.
Sanitation
education can also benefit the wider community through participation. School-led
total sanitation programmes are essential for triggering changes in attitudes
and behaviour surrounding sanitation and hygiene (Joshi,
Kooy and Van den Ouden, 2016). Changing attitudes and behaviour at school
can be beneficial at home too. Children will learn about the importance of hygiene
and sanitation at school and are more likely to encourage these practices at
home and hopefully remove some of the taboos associated with hygiene and
sanitation at home.
Hi Charlie,
ReplyDeleteI'm liking the path you are treading. I've got a couple of questions for you.
1. Do you think education can break the longstanding taboo on sanitation and shit, given the limited provision of quality education in Sub-Saharan Africa?
2. You suggest there needs to be a 'more effective institutional framework' to improve the situation of access to safe water and sanitation, so do you believe top-down initiatives will have more success than bottom-up approaches to development in regard to sanitation?
Robert
Hi Robert,
ReplyDeletethanks for your comments.
Firstly, I believe education has the ability to break long standing taboos around sanitation as children are key to triggering changes in attitudes. However, as you mentioned the limited provision of quality education is definitely a barrier to overcome this, but as noted by the World Bank, if different sectors of government can work together, i.e. education and health a better course can be provided and taught which is likely to have more of an impact than if the education sector worked in isolation.
In regards to your second question, the papers, Stanton and Clemens (1987) and Freeman et al (2003)were both education/project intervention designed to look at the impact of teaching about basic hygiene and sanitation, and the Joshi, Kooy and Van den Ouden (2016) looked at a more participatory approach to sanitation with a school ted total sanitation programme.
Education, here has focused on a more bottom up approach trying to teach children clean practices. Now I do not necessarily agree that top down approaches will have more success to development in regards to sanitation, however when it comes to education, this role largely hinges upon government and more top down approaches. In this sense, development in Africa (in terms of education) cannot be fully provided by NGOS etc or always take a bottom up approach as the government are the people who are running the education and therefore must take the responsibility upon themselves to promote these practices through education. If sanitation and hygiene becomes part of the basic curriculum, as it says in the blog for example Stanton and Clemens (1987) found a significant reduction in the contraction of diarrheal diseases. If this can be scaled up across countries, sanitation can have more success.
Great exchange! Note that the author of the cited article on line 4 of this post is (Val) Curtis from down the road at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
ReplyDeleteCharlie, your posts are excellent and you are getting very good comments. What took you so long to post?! Keep up the well-articulated posts that are accessible and well-connected to a robust literature. Nice to see some of the market-led ideas emerging as well.
ReplyDelete