The Institute of Development Studies and Partner Organisations
Browse

WASH in Schools for Student Return During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Download (275.46 kB)
report
posted on 2024-09-05, 21:03 authored by Laura Bolton
The literature on WASH and school re-opening during the COVID-19 pandemic is dominated by guidelines with little in the way of recent evidence or lessons learned. Analysis of data from school re-openings at the end of 2020 suggests that with mitigation measures in place community infection rates should not be affected by children returning to school. Although children carry a lower risk of infection, they do have large numbers of contact in the school environment, so hygiene and distancing measures are important. The key guidelines for WASH in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic include: children and all school staff must be educated with regards to hand hygiene; hand hygiene stations must be provided at entrances and exits; hand washing must be frequent and requires sufficient water and soap; school buses should have hand hygiene measures in place; and the school environment must be disinfected daily. Environmental, or nudge-based, cues are recommended to support behaviour change in children based on pre-COVID-19 evidence. Examples include colourful footprints leading to a handwashing facility, images of eyes above handwashing facilities, embedding toys in soap, and putting pictures of germs on surfaces.

Funding

FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

History

Publisher

Institute of Development Studies

Citation

Bolton, L. (2021). WASH in schools for student return during the COVID-19 pandemic. K4D Helpdesk Report 969. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/K4D.2021.024

Series

K4D Helpdesk Report 969

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

IDS Item Types

Helpdesk

Copyright holder

© Crown copyright 2021

Language

en

Project identifier

Default project::9ce4e4dc-26e9-4d78-96e9-15e4dcac0642::600

Usage metrics

    K4D COVID-19 Resources

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC