UNITED NATIONS: Millions of children around the world do not have access to clean water or decent toilets at schools, putting them at risk of disease, the United Nations has warned.
The first-ever global assessment of water and sanitation in schools - carried out by the World Health Organization and UNICEF - shows that 620 million children do not have decent toilets at school and around 900 million cannot wash their hands properly.
Ensuring that children attend school and complete their education is crucial to a country's development but a lack of decent hygiene facilities discourages students, particularly girls, from attending school and completing their education.
The assessment found a third of schools around the world do not have adequate toilet facilities and nearly half - 47 per cent - do not provide soap for children.
Almost 900 million children have to contend with a lack of basic hygiene facilities during their education, putting their health at risk and meaning some have to miss school.
"You can't have a quality learning environment without these basics," Dr. Rick Johnston of the World Health Organization, a lead researcher on the project, said.
"Children may not come to school at all if there's no toilets ... Then, when they are at school, they are not going to at their very best if they not able to use a decent toilet or if they are not properly hydrated."
World leaders have signed up to global pledges to provide safe water and hygiene facilities for all and ensure every child gets a comprehensive education by 2030 under the UN's sustainable development goals.
A lack of safe water and sanitation facilities can cause dehydration, illness, and even death, according to the study.
Moreover, children who pick up good hygiene habits at school can reinforce positive life-long behaviours in their homes and communities, said the report.
However, millions of children are going to school without basic hygiene facilities: over 30 per cent of schools worldwide do not provide safe drinking water; a third of schools do not provide the most basic of toilet facilities (such as septic tank, pit latrines or composting toilets); and nearly 900 million children go to schools with no handwashing facilities with soap and water.
The annual report is produced by the World Health Organization/UN Children's Fund Joint Monitoring Programme, which has been monitoring global progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene since 1990.
It looks at the progress made towards reaching the targets of two of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Goal 6(Clean water and sanitation), and Goal 4 (Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all).
Commenting on the report, Kelly Ann Naylor, Global Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at UNICEF, said that "If education is the key to helping children escape poverty, access to water and sanitation is key to helping children safely maximize their education. To neglect this is to be careless with the well-being and health of children,"
Universal access to basic water, sanitation and hygiene in schools is part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but achieving this ambitious target presents a huge challenge. The JMP has designed tools to make it easier to track progress across countries, towards a basic level of drinking water, sanitation and hygiene service.
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