The status of sanitation facilities in selected public schools in Kabushi constituency of Ndola urban

Abstract

The study assessed the status of Sanitation in selected public schools of Kabushi Constituency in Ndola district. The study employed a cross sectional or survey design. The target population con-sisted of the Ndola city council public health department, school administrators, teachers and pu-pils in public schools. Purposive sampling was used to select Ndola as the study area, four (4) head teachers and two key informants from the department of health. The simple random sampling method was used to select 200 pupils from the four schools under study. The total study sample was 231.The self-administered questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and focus group discus-sion guide were used for data collection. Qualitative data were collected and analyzed on an on-going process as themes and sub-themes emerged through thematic analysis. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS and Excel through which descriptive statistics in form of statistical ta-bles, and charts were generated. The findings showed that the sanitation status of the assessed pub-lic schools in Ndola is generally poor as seen from the pupil respondents that 30 (15%) referred to the accessibility to water facilities in their respective schools as merely in Existence, 84 (42%) re-ferred to the water accessibility in schools as Improved, 52(26%) referred to the water accessibility in their schools as Functional, while 34(17%) described water accessibility as other. The problem of inadequate sanitation impacts negatively on the social well-being of the community as it con-tributes to a high child morbidity and mortality. The study also reveals that 93% of the respond-ents reported that WASH has not been implemented in the district. Similarly, 2% of the pupils re-ported having WASH programs in schools, 10% of the pupils were not sure while 78% reported not having a WASH program in school. The findings of the study further showed that the role of City Council in enhancing proper sanitation in schools include monitoring legislation and develop-ing an enabling environment for proper sanitation. Based on the findings of the study, it was con-cluded that the sanitation status of the assessed public schools in Ndola are generally poor and the problem of inadequate sanitation impacts negatively on the health and social well-being of com-munities on the environment in the city. The study recommended the need for the enforcement of regulations on norms and standards for school infrastructure in order to match with increasing population.