Swachh Bharat: Swachh Vidyalaya is the national campaign driving ‘Clean India: Clean Schools’. A key feature of the campaign is to ensure that every school in India has a set of functioning and well-maintained water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities. Water, sanitation, and hygiene in schools refer to a combination of technical and human development components that are necessary to produce a healthy school environment and to develop or support appropriate health and hygiene behaviors. The technical components include drinking water, hand washing, toilet and soap facilities in the school compound for use by children and teachers. The human development components are the activities that promote conditions within the school and the practices of children that help to prevent water, hygiene and sanitation-related diseases.
School sanitation and hygiene depend on a process of capacity enhancement of teachers, community members, SMCs, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and education administrators. Water, sanitation, and hygiene in school aim to make a visible impact on the health and hygiene of children through improvement in their health and hygiene practices, and those of their families and the communities. It also aims to improve the curriculum and teaching methods while promoting hygiene practices and community ownership of water and sanitation facilities within schools. it improves children’s health, school enrolment, attendance, and retention and paves the way for a new generation of healthy children. It is the role of policymakers, government representatives, citizens and parents to make sure that every child attends a school that has access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation, and hygiene facilities. This is every child’s right.
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