Bringing the human voice to WASH in schools
We know whether WASH services are available in schools. But do they meet the needs of students and staff?
The School WASH Insecurity Experiences (School-WISE) Scales are brief surveys that answer that question by capturing whether services are accessible, acceptable, and adequate for the people who depend on them.
Why we are building these tools
Reliable water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services are essential for effective learning and for supporting the safety and dignity of students and school staff. Accurate measurement is the first step to ensuring their needs are met.
A fuller picture
What traditional supply-side measures capture
Is a service available at the time of survey?
Facility-based indicators measure availability well, and accessibility in part, at a single point in time.
What School-WISE helps fill in
Does the service reliably meet the needs of the people who use it?
Students and staff report on accessibility, usability and sufficiency, and reliability over time, across all five domains.
The value of measuring experiences
All ten schools sampled in Uganda as part of the School-WISE project had basic drinking water services based on WHO/UNICEF criteria, yet most students still went thirsty.
Data like these help reveal whether services are falling short for the people who use them, and inform what to do about it, whether through service upgrades or other changes. In Uganda, they are helping local decision-makers work out how to better meet the needs of students and staff, and to fulfill their right to safe water.
By WHO/UNICEF JMP criteria
Drinking water service
- Basic serviceWater from an improved source, available at the schoolAll schools
- Limited serviceAn improved source, but no water available
- No serviceAn unimproved source, or none
Water challenges experienced by students and staff at schools with basic drinking water services
| Problem | Students (613) | School staff (162) |
|---|---|---|
| Thirsty, no safe water to drink | 69 | 51 |
| Worried water would run short | 59 | 53 |
| Water tasted, looked, or smelled bad | 38 | 15 |
Measuring beyond basic
Global monitoring systems classify school drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene services as basic, limited, or no service based on the type of facility present and whether it is available or usable at the time of survey. The School-WISE Scales complement these supply-side indicators by assessing whether services are accessible, acceptable, and adequate for the diverse needs of the people who use them.
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Drinking water
WHO/UNICEF basic service
Water from an improved source, available at the school
Example School-WISE question“In the past week, how often did you feel thirsty at school but there was no safe water to drink?”
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Sanitation
WHO/UNICEF basic service
Improved toilets that are single-sex and usable
Example School-WISE question“In the past week, how often did you worry you could be seen while peeing or pooping at school?”
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Hygiene
WHO/UNICEF basic service
A handwashing facility with water and soap available
Example School-WISE question“In the past week, how often was there not enough soap for washing your hands while at school?”
Apply the scales to advance WASH in schools
Measure what matters
User-centered data reveal whether services are accessible, acceptable, and adequate for diverse needs. These are the conditions that determine whether a service is actually used and supports well-being.
Examine disparities
Conventional WASH measures describe conditions at the facility level. The individual-level data collected through School-WISE surveys reveal disparities by gender, disability status, and role at the school, giving a fuller picture of how to design efforts to equitably improve conditions.
Inform policy and investment
Survey items and the resulting scores are designed to be comparable across settings. They can identify the populations most acutely affected and, paired with other data, point to the drivers of WASH insecurity, direct investment where it is needed, and engage other sectors by demonstrating the wider benefits of investing in WASH.
A comprehensive conceptualization of WASH
The School-WISE Scales ask about experiences across five domains: water, sanitation, hygiene, menstrual health, and waste management. These align with, and expand upon, the services currently monitored by the WHO/UNICEF JMP.
Alongside the surveys, study teams complete a structured assessment of each school's WASH infrastructure. Pairing the experiential information with conventional supply-side indicators shows whether service availability consistently translates into better experiences for students and staff, and where conditions need to improve when it does not.
How the scales are builtWater
Availability, perceived safety, and accessibility of water for drinking and for other uses at school.
Sanitation
Accessibility, privacy, safety, and adequacy of sanitation facilities at school.
Hygiene
Accessibility and adequacy of hygiene facilities for washing hands as desired at school.
Menstrual health
Ability to manage menstrual needs safely, privately, and with dignity while at school.
Waste management
Adequacy of waste management for maintaining clean classrooms and schoolyards.
A growing consortium
The School-WISE project is a network of academic institutions, NGOs, and implementing partners. Consortium members implement the surveys through standalone studies or embed them in existing monitoring and evaluation efforts within schools, and contribute the resulting data to a shared, harmonized database.
School-based data collection is complete in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, Rwanda, and Uganda, with further sites planned or underway. We are actively seeking partners in high-income countries, South America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia.
Data collection complete
In preparation
Ethiopia
Data collection completeAddis Ababa
Splash
Site leads: Chris Nicoletti, Fiker Abebe, Israel Yednekachew
Oromia, Somali, and other regions
Needs4Water
Site lead: Asma Rabo, Founder
Get involved
Use the tools
Add the survey to ongoing or planned work.
- The tools are developed and our team can help with implementation
- The School-WISE modules can be embedded in ongoing studies or project evaluations
Partners who contribute a site to the scale development study receive early access to the tools, training and technical support, results returned for their own sites, and opportunities for co-authorship.
Fund the work
Help the consortium reach new settings.
We now have data from many sites, but the scales need to be implemented in more of them before we can judge how well they perform across diverse settings. We are therefore seeking support for new study sites and for training partner teams. We would welcome a conversation.
Stay informed
The project newsletter carries updates on milestones, new sites, publications, and consortium news. Papers, presentations, and site reports are collected on the Resources page as they become available.
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