HERE!: More girls attend school with water, sanitation and hygiene improvements

(Note: See bottom for link to full interview with Author).

When drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene conditions are improved at primary schools in rural Western Kenya, more girls say 'HERE' at roll call. School conditions in Kenya are particularly dire. Although the recent policy to let all children attend primary school for free has increased the number of children in schools, the infrastructure has not been able to keep up. The latrine conditions are particularly bad, and  safe water for drinking and washing hands is not always available.

A study involving 135 schools was carried out between 2007 and 2009. Ninety of those schools received improvements in the form of water treatment, hygiene promotion (lessons about hand-washing), and new latrines. Forty-five schools did not receive the improvements, and the researchers compared the schools over time to see if there were any differences. The researchers of this study expected that improving conditions would result in decreased absenteeism for all students.

But that was not the case. There was no reduction in absenteeism for boys. However, great reductions in absenteeism were seen among the girls students.

So what does this all mean? Well that is hard to answer. In an interview with one of the lead authors, Dr. Matthew Freeman, even he asks "Why did this intervention, these improvements, really impact girls but not boys?" He answers that "this raises question for further studies and further exploration of what components really made a difference for girls."

The results of this study, Dr. Freeman noted, can be used to advocate for and justify increased spending on water, sanitation and hygiene in schools. Further, he notes that quality matters. In order for these improvements to have a lasting effect, they need to be maintained over time.

So what about the schools that did not get the improvements at the start of the study? Is it ethically ok to not give them anything? Dr. Freeman added that the schools that did not initially get the improvements received them at the end of the study.

Footage from the interview is posted here.
 

To Learn more: 

Freeman, M. C., L. E. Greene, et al. (In Press). "Assessing the impact of a school-based water treatment, hygiene and sanitation programme on a pupil absence in Nyanza Province, Kenya: a cluster-randomized trial." Tropical Medicine and International Health.

Bethany Caruso is a doctoral student in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education. She is also interested in water, sanitation and hygiene conditions. Specifically, she wants to understand behaviors. She has been known to ask questions like: "why is that soap not used?",  "How come no one treated the water even though there is treatment available?" She is currently working on a paper called, also raising a question: "If you build it will they come?: Pupil use of school latrines in rural Kenya." She also wants to know more about these girls who are attending school, but wants to know more about those who are still absent despite the improvements.