Mrs Habiba Kotoma, La Dadekotopon Municipal Education Director has expressed the need for basic school authorities to prioritize and promote the maintenance of washroom facilities in schools.
This is to ensure good hygiene and foster harmonious teaching and learning practices among learners and facilitators, she stated, adding, ‘The use of washroom facilities is a human right issue and there is no basis to deny students or the individual of its access.’
Mrs Kotoma made the statement at an event to climax the World Toilet Day at Tenashie Basic School in the municipality, which was on the theme: ‘Accelerating Change.’
She indicated that the absence of properly functioning restrooms had the potential to disrupt the education of students to a considerable extent and charged school authorities not to lock up restrooms because of minor defects to inconvenience students and staff.
Mrs Kotoma urged the schools within the municipality to put in place a team to ensure regular maintenance and effective use of washr
oom facilities, adding that minor defects on the facilities should be fixed promptly before they degenerate into worst-case scenarios which would attract higher costs.
She commended the intervention of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) in collaboration with the assembly for the provision of a wide range of washroom facilities for several schools in the municipality.
She said plans were advanced to hold a stakeholders’ meeting within the school circles in the area to brainstorm on management strategies to prolong the lifespan of the restroom facilities.
Mrs Constance Owusu Sekyere, the School Health Education Programmes (SHEP) Coordinator, said her outfit would continue to intensify user education and prevail on teachers to promote monitoring and behavioural change in the schools to achieve the goal of accelerating change for this year.
She said about 95 per cent of schools in the municipality had washroom facilities but the issue of maintenance would be improved to prolong their lifespan.
The SH
EP Coordinator indicated that the La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly was working assiduously with major stakeholders to bridge the deficit gap in the facilities.
Mrs Sekyere said the support of the Parent Teacher Associations (PTA) through self-managed levies to keep the facilities in good shape was critical as evidenced by success stories in some schools, adding that capitation grants were not enough to cater for operation and maintenance issues in the schools.
Mr Samuel Momon, a representative from the La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly, said the assembly together with its partners would not relent in their efforts to bridge the deficit gap for deprived schools to meet the expected sanitation standards.
He said the issue of sanitation in its entirety remains one of the critical issues at the forefront of the assembly’s quest to deliver on its mandate to better the lot of the people.
Mr Momon applauded the decision reached by stakeholders and authorities to prevail on the PTA to support the maintenance of
the facilities to enable them to function well to help meet the accepted standards.
He said the issue of maintenance should be given the foremost attention by all schools in order not to reverse the gains made with respect to improving sanitation standards and that the assembly would liaise with the education directorate in that regard.
Source: Ghana News Agency