HANOI, 17 June 2009 (IRIN) – For Nguyen Cong Tuan, 10, a primary school student in Hanoi, using the toilets at school was a frightening experience.
The filth and stench made him afraid to go near them. So Tuan would wait until he got home; his mother rightly worried that he could develop urinary tract problems.
Yet Tuan could be considered one of the lucky ones – many schools in Vietnam, even in the capital, Hanoi, lack any toilets at all.
The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) recently surveyed sanitation facilities in 11.200 schools across the country.
“About 30 percent of inspected schools had no toilets or inadequate toilets,” says La Quy Don, deputy head of the ministry’s student affairs department.
A separate survey conducted in Hanoi found that of 1.400 schools nearly all failed to have enough sanitation facilities, says Nguyen Nhu Hoa, deputy head of the office for planning and finance in the city’s education department.
Læs videre her: www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84881
