MoH underscores need for sanitation of schools to ensure health of students
Industry and Institution Hygiene Supervision Team Leader with the Ministry, Sileshi Taye, said at a national workshop deliberating on a new directive designed to curtail sanitation, water and hygiene problems witnessed in schools that sanitation of school environments need to be maintained so as to help students realize their objectives.
According to a sample study carried out by the ministries of Health and Water Resource in collaboration with UNICEF in 2,013 selected primary schools in the country, only 76 percent of the schools have toilet facilities, the team leader indicated.
Besides, several students have no accesses to potable water in their school compounds, Sileshi said, adding that shortage of safe drinking water and problems of hygiene are witnessed in the majority of the close to 21,000 primary schools in the country.
Some 60 percent of the communicable diseases in our environment result from poor environmental sanitation, he said, and further stressed that serious attention should be given for both the sanitations of school compounds and surroundings of students in order to protect them from communicable diseases.
The new directive would be implemented in all schools in the country next year after a through deliberation by experts in the field, it was pointed out.
Experts in the field drawn from 11 states and the ministries of health, water and education are in attendance of the three-day workshop, it was learnt.
