Over 20 Percent of Children in Brazil Attend Schools without Proper Sanitation

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In Brazil, 28 percent of children aged between four and five are enrolled in establishments with no complete basic sanitation – i.e., lack of filtered water, sewage disposal or garbage collection. According to data from the Observatory of the Legal Framework for Early Childhood, this rate stands at 21 percent for children up to age three in kindergartens. The survey considers schools that lack at least one of the sanitation items.

The data also show that there are inequalities among regions in Brazil, location of schools – whether they are in urban or rural areas – and even related to the students’ color and race.

According to the survey, the North region has the highest percentage of enrollments in schools lacking basic sanitation: 75 percent of children enrolled in preschools and 71 percent enrolled in day-care centers do not have access to these services. On the other hand, the Southeast region has the lowest rates, with only six percent of pre-school enrollments and five percent in day-care centers lacking access to basic sanitation.

Nationwide, 80 percent of enrollments in daycare centers located in urban areas and 55 percent in daycare centers in rural areas have all the sanitation items. Among preschools, these rates are 76 and 47 percent, respectively.

According to the survey, a higher number of black children study in areas of greater vulnerability than white children. Basic sanitation items are lacking in day care centers where 27 percent of black children are enrolled and 34 percent in pre-schools. Among white children, these rates are lower: 15 percent are enrolled in day care centers and 17 percent in pre-schools lacking sanitation.

Inequalities are also found among cities within the same state and among neighborhoods. According to the executive secretary of the Pernambuco Early Childhood Network, Solidade Menezes Cordeiro, the lack of basic sanitation in the state is more serious in the interior than in the capital. Construction of tanks, supply by tanker trucks and the use of wells are part of the daily life of part of Pernambuco’s population.

Basic Sanitation and Coronavirus

The availability or lack of basic sanitation services is an issue that should be considered when deciding whether or not to restart in-person classes in schools, which continue to operate remotely in most of the country because of the pandemic. This decision will fall on the municipal administrators elected this year, who are mainly responsible for early childhood education, a stage that includes daycare and pre-school, .

They will also be responsible for adjusting the municipalities to the new Legal Sanitation Framework, which provides for universal access to basic sanitation by 2033. The new mayors will be required to comply with the requirements of the law to access resources to improve these services, such as participating in regional partnerships with other cities to provide services, joining a regulatory agency and establishing new collection mechanisms.

“The sanitation challenge is a challenge for education structures, but it is also a challenge that transcends this environment. When we talk about sanitation we are thinking about city structures as a whole. It is crucial to have adequate sanitation. We know that, in the context of the pandemic, access to sanitation is an essential structure for the population,” said the technical coordinator of the study, Thaís Malheiros.

Source: Exame