The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : School sanitation drive launched

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Tuesday, Aug 05, 2008
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

School sanitation drive launched

Staff Reporter

To sensitise students to the needs of a clean environment

Photo: C. Ratheesh kumar

Message is clear: Students waving placards at a State-level campaign on school sanitation held at Cotton Hill Girls Higher Secondary School in the city on Monday. —

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ensuring cleanliness of our surroundings is as important as personal hygiene, Minister for Education M.A. Baby has said.

He was speaking to the students of Cotton Hill Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Vazhuthacaud, after inaugurating a State-level ‘school sanitation programme’ organised by the Department of Education in association with the Department of Local Self-Government on Monday.

The aim of the programme is to create a realisation that every individual is responsible for maintaining a clean environment.

“For instance, while taking bath it should be ensured that there is adequate drainage facility for the bathwater to seep through without clogging,” he said.

Significant step

Describing the sanitation drive as a “significant step” in the history of the State, Mr. Baby said that unlike previous campaigns the current programme would be a “sustained project.” The idea was to make hygiene a part of life like democracy, he said.

Mr. Baby said that the activities carried out under the drive would be incorporated in the curriculum. However, he advised the students not to confine what they imbibed to classrooms alone. “Society itself is a big classroom and what you learn should be applied for the benefit of others.”

He urged the school councils to play a pro-active role in the construction of hygienic toilets for girl students. Strengthening school laboratories and other infrastructure should also become a part of this, he said.

Brochure released

The Education Minister later released a brochure on the programme that exhorts children to ensure a school campus free of garbage, flies and mosquitoes.

Mayor C. Jayan Babu, who presided over the function, urged the students to clear puddles and similar formations to ensure that their campus did not become a vector breeding ground.

The brochure, which envisions a ‘garbage free Kerala’, attributes the shoddy disposal of garbage, stagnant water bodies and unhygienic surroundings as a major factor for the outbreak of contagious diseases such as chikungunya, dengue fever and Weil’s disease.

Dry days

As part of the cleaning drive, dry days will be observed in schools on Mondays, during which children will clean the campus.

Some of the other areas that will be covered as part of the cleanliness drive include minimising food waste, construction of soak pits for channelling polluted water, setting up of garbage treatment plants, construction of rainwater harvesting units, segregation of plastic waste and setting up herbal and vegetable gardens.

A school-level health and sanitation club will be constituted to monitor and coordinate the activities which the students will be able to carry out along with their academic studies. The club will comprise representatives of teachers and students.

Technical support

Technical support will be provided by the departments of Health and Water Resources. The initiatives will be implemented on the basis of a guideline prepared by a council comprising students, which will be set up in every educational institution.

Special recognition will be granted to schools that complete the mission in a time-bound manner.

The sanitation drive also aims at ensuring the quality of drinking water available in schools apart from strengthening the laboratory facilities available to higher secondary students.

The services of science teachers at the respective schools will also be enlisted for the effective implementation of the programme.

The campaign will also feature classes, seminars and special sessions highlighting the importance of hygiene.

The inaugural function was attended by James Varghese, secretary, General Education Department; V. Sivankutty, MLA; and V. Prasnna Kumari, Principal of the school.

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