Girl students skip classes due to lack of proper toilet facilities at schools RUBY RAUNIYAR KATHMANDU, Dec 23:When Sushmita Adhikari gets her period every month, she hesitates to go to school. The lack of student bathrooms is the sole reason why she skips school during her menstruation. Studying in the heart of Kathmandu at Nava Adarsha School in Basantapur Durbar Square, Sushmita laments the lack of even first-aid kits at her school. “It’s difficult for me to go to school when I’m getting my periods because there’s no water in the school bathroom. We also don’t have a dustbin where we can dispose of our sanitary napkins. It’s embarrassing for us to go to school in such a situation,” she says, adding, “And because of all these problems, we can’t even concentrate on our studies. Can you help arrange sanitary napkins for us in the school? We’re having a hard time here but we hope that our juniors won’t have to go through the same experience.” Many public schools in Kathmandu Valley don’t proper toilets for their students. This results in girls being absent for a couple of days every month during their periods. The few who attend school return home after a few hours. Kanchan Rai, studying in Class Seven at Durbar High School in Jamal, says that while she attends classes, she returns home after the first half of the school is over. The bathroom in our school is just for name only. Our main problem is the bathroom during our periods. There’s no water or dustbin in the bathroom. And they’re so dirty that one will feel ill when stepping inside,” she says. Every student is taught that it’s important to wash hands with soap and water before eating, but for these students, it’s sad that there’s no soap in the washroom. Another Class Seven student, Amrita Chaudhary, says, “After we play during break in the school, we’re dusty and we need to wash. But where can we go? The bathrooms are so dirty that we don’t feel like going there. And there’s no water anywhere. So how do we wash our hands? We don’t even eat our lunch at school because we’re afraid that we may have to use the bathroom.” Sapana Lama, who has been studying in the school for the past ten years, has the same complaints. She is disappointed that the school has never taken this problem seriously. “Many of my friends have to leave class midway during their periods. It’s because we don’t have any sanitary napkins available in the school and we’re afraid that our skirts will get stained. Some girls don’t come to the school at all,” she says. This stresses the students to the point that they don’t feel like studying. Dirty bathrooms affect the students so much that they can’t even concentrate on studies in their classroom. Shristi Thapa, a Class Eight student of Paropakar Adarsha Higher Secondary School in Bhimsensthan, has similar observations. The school hasn’t made any effort to take care of students’ health and keep the surroundings clean. “We study how important it is to keep clean during our periods. It’s there in our EPH and Social Studies books. But the teaching is only limited to books,” says Supriya Thapa Magar of Bishwa Niketan Higher Secondary School in Tripureshwor. Even Nava Adarsha Secondary School’s Social Studies teacher Rita Maskey admits that students face a lot of problems during their periods. In her two decades of experience, she has seen students from Class Five begin experiencing this problem firsthand. She believes that it’s the schools’ shortcoming that they haven’t been able to manage good toilets for students or ensure that they’re clean and hygienic. “I teach a chapter on menstruation but they are just learning theoretically,” Maskey points out. “And because they lack practical knowledge, they don’t know how to use sanitary napkins and they don’t come to school out of embarrassment.” Till now, government schools have only been focusing on teachers’ quotas but they haven’t paid any attention to solving their students’ health-related problems. School principals believe this is a huge challenge for the management in government schools. Principal Upendra Dhungana of Nava Adarsha School says it’s the government which isn’t paying attention to the students’ problems. “The government talks about free education but when it comes to arranging and managing it, there’s no research or work being done.” Dhungana, who has been working in the school for the past four decades, also accepts that there’s no availability of sanitary napkins or any materials required during the menstruation periods for girls at the school. “Just like classrooms are important in schools, so are bathrooms. But there’s been no arrangement by the government to keep them clean,” he says. According to Dhananjaya Yadav, former principal of Durbar High School, students don’t know how to use toilets properly because they haven’t been provided the right information at school. “Even where schools have toilets, students don’t use them properly. It’s our fault that we haven’t been able to teach our children. When the government invests on children’s education, it should also take their basic healthcare into consideration. Then only there will be improvement in overall education,” he shares. He suggests that because children spend the majority of their day at school, it’s imperative that the government take action to arrange for a clean school. Published on 2014-12-24 09:17:53
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:28:34 +0000