Beyond Water – Sanitation and Education

Basic sanitation is one of the essential pillars for the quality of life of communities. It involves access to clean water, adequate wastewater treatment and safe sanitation facilities.

However, what many may not realize is that basic sanitation goes beyond water… it has a profound influence on education, directly affecting school attendance, academic performance and student well-being. Check out the impact of sanitation on education.

School Attendance

According to UNESCO’s “Ready to Learn and Thrive: School Health and Global Nutrition” report, about one in three children worldwide do not have safe drinking water in their schools. In addition to affecting health, not having access to drinking water limits educational capacity and increases school dropout rates. According to data from the Sanitation Panel, an initiative by Instituto Trata Brasil, students with access to sanitation have an average of 9.18 years of schooling, while those who do not have it are 5.31 years.

Prevention of diseases

Young people and children who live in places without access to drinking water and safe sanitation facilities are more susceptible to contracting diseases, which forces students to miss classes. And as one fact leads to another, missing classes or going to school sick can create difficulties in following the content, reducing learning and performance. 

According to INEP statistics related to the National Secondary Education Examination (ENEM), which is an admission test for higher education in several institutions, students who lived in housing without a bathroom for exclusive use showed a lower performance compared to those who had access to homes with bathrooms. The average ENEM score for candidates who had access to a bathroom was 535.69, in contrast to students without a bathroom, whose average was 468.31, representing a difference of approximately 70 points in the final scores.

Teacher Retention

Teachers are also affected by the lack of basic sanitation. Schools with inadequate conditions may face difficulties in retaining teachers. The lack of teachers compromises the quality of education, creating a negative impact on the educational lives of children and young people who study there. 

In short, sanitation is essential to educational success. Investing in adequate sanitation facilities not only improves students' health, but also increases their academic performance. Improving sanitation conditions benefits not only students, but the entire community.