A modern education system cannot be built when a child goes to school, does lessons at an interactive table and studies according to a proper curriculum, but goes to an outhouse, said Iulia Nazaria, project coordinator of Amnesty International Moldova. In a roundtable meeting staged by the Parliament’s commission on social protection, health and family, in partnership with Amnesty International Moldova, Iulia Nazaria noted that the problem of hygiene in education institutions became more pressing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the schools in the country violate students’ rights to health and intimacy. The precarious hygiene affects the state of health of hundreds and thousands of students, IPN reports.
No official statistics about the sanitary and hygiene conditions in Moldova’s schools have been made public by institutions that can do this. The fact that the authorities do not know the situation is a violation of children’s rights.
According to a poll conducted by Amnesty International Moldova, 38% of the students said that they go to the outhouse only when they cannot endure or have an urgency, while 2.6% never go to an outhouse. 60% said they do not go to the school toilet because there is no toilet paper. Many said they do not go there because it smells unpleasantly there or it is cold. Also, 74% of the students said the teachers have a separate toilet to which the students do not have access. 87% of the respondents said the toilets are not adjusted for children with special needs.
As to the access to drinking water, only 11% of the students said they drink water while they are at school, 43% said they bring water from home, 7% buy it at the school’s canteen, 6% cannot obtain water when they are at school. Asked if they are taught the hygiene rules, most of the students said that this happens only when these norms are violated.
Amnesty International considers a national program with clear mechanisms for solving the problem during the next three years at least is a first step that should be taken. The Ministry of Education should cooperate with the local authorities so as to assess the situation and to determine the costs associated with the implementation of the program and should also work out a national plan for the gradual implementation of sanitary norms in pre-university education institutions.
Ana Mardare, secretary of state at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development, said a regional and local development fund was created to integrate a part of the needs related to the development of social infrastructure. There are other water supply and sewerage projects that are to be negotiated. A Word Bank project has a component that refers to infrastructure and sanitation in schools.
Galina Rusu, secretary of state at the Ministry of Education and Research, noted that 1,044 of the 1,239 education institutions have the sanitary facilities annexed or integrated into the main building of the school. But only 879 of them meet the WHO requirements. 1,180 institutions have only cold water supply systems, while 195 schools have the toilet outside. All the decision makers should work together to solve the problem.
Vasile Guștiuc, vice director of the National Public Health Agency, said that the sanitary norms adopted in 2006 are now applied and the legal framework should be updated in accordance with the WHO requirements.
The commission on social protection, health and family undertook to set up a working group together with representatives of all the stakeholders, which will examine the situation and will suggest solutions.
