Parent protests over infrastructural deficiencies, health hazards and physically dangerous conditions in state schools – the latest of which occurred at the Philadelphia Primary School just last week – have become a common occurrence. In a sense the protests are a healthy sign. They reflect an intolerance of what are sometimes the deplorable conditions under which their children’s education is delivered and a preparedness to let the authorities know how they feel. The frequency with which these protests are staged reflects the failure on the part of the authorities to attend to what, in many cases are long-festering problems of physical deterioration of some state schools, many of which are more than half a century old. Each time that a protest occurs, the protesting parents home in unerringly on the protracted nature of the problems and the inattention of the authorities to their appeals for remedial action.
The problems, usually, are not small ones. Invariably, they pose serious threats to the safety and health of the school populations, or else otherwise compromise the learning environment. It is, for example, altogether unacceptable that in this day and age children attending state schools should be subjected to the risk of disease and physical danger that attend the use of pit latrines; the likelihood of serious injury that could result from collapsing structures or rotting floorboards in school houses; and the health risks associated with the absence of a reliable water supply.
Inside classrooms, a lack of adequate quantities of furniture and overcrowding impose their own hazards, not least of which are limitations of space, the risk of the spread of communicable infections resulting from proximity among children and the attendant discomfort for students and teachers which, of course, impacts directly on both the delivery and receipt of education.
In response to these protests the Ministry of Education has pointed fingers at the regional administrations where, they say, responsibility lies for the maintenance of the physical infrastructure of state schools. It is, to say the least, a disingenuous response, since the necessary collaboration between state and regional agencies, or lack thereof, to ensure that schools are learning-friendly cannot be expected to be the concern of the protesting parents, children or teachers. The buck stops with the agency responsible for the delivery of education.
Setting aside the fact that the country’s education budget is usually one of the largest of the annual state allocations, spending on education is usually supplemented by loan and grant allocations from multilateral agencies which monies are spent on both physical infrastructure, including the construction of schools, and programmes that have to do directly with the delivery of education. What the Ministry of Education rarely if ever does is to provide assessments of the outcomes of those programmes that have to do directly with education delivery and their impact on enhancing learning in schools as a whole. Indeed, when one looks at the volume of protests over deficiencies in physical infrastructure in schools one is inclined to wonder about the correctness of the balance between those initiatives that are concerned directly with the delivery of education and those that have to do with the physical environment in schools.
It requires no particular expertise in education psychology to determine that getting the balance right is important to the effective delivery of education. Overcrowded classrooms, for example, and the attendant discomfort and health considerations for the school population, are bound to impact in some, perhaps many cases, negatively, on the receptivity of the students to what they are being taught and on the morale of teachers. Indeed, there is no shortage of studies that have concluded that a lack of basic facilities in many schools in developing countries not only depresses staff and student morale but also acts as an impediment to effective teaching and learning.
Clearly laid-down standards for a healthy school environment are outlined in a series of studies that have been conducted by the World Health Organization. (WHO) Specifically, the WHO defines what it considers to be a healthy school as “one that constantly strengthens its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working,” while The American Society of Pediatrics considers a school environment “healthful” only if it “protects students and staff against immediate injury or disease and promotes prevention activities and attitudes against known risk factors that might lead to future disease or disability.”
Measurable criteria are clearly outlined in the WHO study in which it lists four “components of a healthy school environment,” namely “provision of basic necessities; protection from biological threats; protection from physical threats and protection from chemical threats.” Listed within the first component (provision of basic necessities) are availability of water, light, ventilation, sanitary facilities and emergency medical care. The second component (protection from biological threats) embraces considerations such as unsafe or insufficient water, unsafe food, vector-borne diseases, venomous animals, and rodents and hazardous insects. The third component (protection from physical threats) addresses, among other things, the need for school populations to be protected from violence and crime and injuries, while the final component (protection from chemical threats) deals with water pollution, pesticides, hazardous waste, asbestos and paint.
It is not difficult to determine that many, perhaps most state-run schools fall well short of meeting one or more of the WHO’s standards. Further, at least as far as we are aware, there any publicly available studies by the Ministry of Education that have sought to assess how far adrift we are of meeting those standards and the impact of the deficiencies on effective teaching and learning.
From all that the protesting parents have been saying, there appears to be no structured systematic programme for the maintenance of schools across the country, and the upgrading of their physical facilities, some of which have not been addressed in years, or else have benefited from ‘quick fix’ attention. Indeed, the parents contend that years of inattention to the need for effective upgrading and maintenance of structures and facilities at some schools have left them in a state of near collapse.
The available evidence would appear to suggest that the Ministry of Education may well have neglected to take sufficient cognizance of the nexus between the physical environment in which education is delivered and the effectiveness of education delivery. The protests of parents are, in effect, a reminder that to ignore the physical environment in which education is delivered is to run the huge risk of compromising the intended outcomes of education delivery itself.
