Result of KAP survey for hygiene education project

As part of the hygiene education project in Parwan Province, JEN has supported the provision of a 6-month hygiene education course in 42 schools in Sayd Khel District and Salang District.

Before starting the course, we conducted a survey to find out about the students’ knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP survey) related to hygiene. The schools selected for this survey had never received any hygiene education from the Department of Education or other aid agencies.
“Please give hygiene education to the children.” This was a strong request we had received from the school teachers, village chiefs, and parents, when we visited the villages and interviewed the people to explore their needs.

It was revealed from the survey result that approximately 75% of the students did not have sanitation knowledge or hygienic habit. Most of the children did not know the correct methods to wash the hands, cut the nails, or brush the teeth, etc. They did not have the habit of looking after the personal hygiene on a daily basis. Unhygienic lifestyle was one of the reasons for high prevalence of diarrhea and cholera, which were serious health problems for the village children. Therefore, JEN decided to provide the support in order to improve the sanitation for the children.

The project not only targets the school children but also includes the school teachers and the government officials of Parwan Province. By March this year, hygiene education specialists from the Department of Education had trained 14 government officials as hygiene education trainers. In the same period, these hygiene education trainers gave a 3-day training workshop to all of the teachers in the 42 schools, a total of approximately 720 school teachers.

After acquiring the correct knowledge of hygiene, the school teachers gave hygiene education classes to their students according to JEN’s curriculum, from mid-May until the start of the winter examination in mid-November.

　From May through June, hygiene kits containing soaps and toothbrushes were distributed to approximately 22,000 students in the target schools. The kit contained the basic sanitary items and allowed the children to actually use them both at school and at home as they gained the knowledge through hygiene education classes.

At the end of each month, from June to October, the officials of Parwan Department of Education, school management committee (established by JEN), and JEN staff monitored the children’s knowledge and practice and discussed the achievements together with the school management. This continuous effort to confirm the hygiene status and improve the teaching methods has helped the children to gradually acquire the correct hygiene habits.

Finally in mid-November, we conducted another KAP survey with the students in 42 schools. This time, after the implementation of the project, the percentage of children without hygiene habit/ knowledge became 0%. Approximately 85% of the students had successfully acquired the knowledge and habits related to hygiene and the remaining 15% of the students also had the basic level of knowledge and habits.