Wa — The Upper West Regional Environmental Health and Sanitation Department (REHSD) along with the Regional Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee on Sanitation (RICCS) on Thursday launched a maiden sanitation league desk for all 33 public senior excessive faculties (SHS) within the area at Wa.
The desk sought to evaluate the provision and entry to correct sanitation in all public SHS throughout the area.
The examine that led to the design of the league desk was based mostly on seven efficiency indicators labeled as entry to latrine by each instructing and non-teaching employees, entry to handwashing amenities on campus and the state/standing/situation of latrine/ water and sanitation (WASH) amenities on campus.
Others included the open defecation free (ODF) standing of the college, normal cleanliness and the dedication of the college to WASH.
A advisor with Ideapath Consult, Mr LukemanTahiru who was a part of the examine workforce stated the principle goal for conducting the examine was to assist enhance water, sanitation and hygiene behaviour and companies within the SHSs within the area.
He defined that the examine sought to look at the state and entry to sanitation amenities on the varied faculties to be able to have a substantive doc that will support in advocating improved companies within the space of WASH within the faculties.
Mr Tahiru stated the workforce uncovered by the examine that solely three faculties had improved sanitation, 4 might be described as reasonably improved, whereas six have been marked as honest with the remaining 20 faculties revealing very poor sanitary circumstances across the college.
Sign up totally free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the most recent in African information delivered straight to your inbox
He defined that many of the faculties within the area had superb latrines however utilization and upkeep was problematic as a lot of them had faeces littered in and across the amenities.
“In some of the institutions we found newly constructed water closet toilets placed under lock because the schools do not have a regular flow of water, leaving the students to practice open defecation especially in the Wa Municipality,” he stated.
He additionally lamented the poor administration of waste water in many of the faculties and inspired the heads to mobilise the scholars to assemble native soak-aways to forestall the breeding of mosquitoes.
The Regional Director on the REHSD, Ms Freda Naatu indicated that college sanitation has been recognized as a holistic a part of sanitation of a neighborhood and stated efforts have been being channelled into the sector along with their companions.
“It will be quite disheartening to have a zonal council or district declared as open defecation free but realise that schools within the area have very bad sanitary conditions,” she stated.
The Regional Director of Education, Mr Abdul Razak Korah recommended the REHSD for the work completed and stated it was going to information official discourse on the demand for such facilities within the faculties going ahead.
He used the chance to encourage the assorted head lecturers to take eager curiosity within the sanitation of their respective faculties for improved sanitation.
Takpo, Sombo and St Augustine’s Senior High Technical Schools all within the Nadowli-Kaleo District, acquired citations and sanitation instruments for rising first, second and third on the league desk.