Africa-Press – Tanzania. DEPUTY Minister of State in the President’s Office – Regional Administration and Local Government, Dr Festo Dugange announced yesterday that over 25,800 schools across the country now have reliable water sources.
This follows the implementation of guidelines that emphasise the installation of water infrastructure in all school facilities.
Dr Dugange said a total of 5,311 secondary schools have reliable sources of the precious liquid. He added that at least 2,960 schools have piped water, 1,217 have wells and 1,134 harvest rainwater.
Dr Dugange explained that the government decided to come up with guidelines to ensue installation of water infrastructure are considered during construction to solve the problem of water in schools.
The deputy minister was responding to a question posed by Ms Minza Mjika (Special Seats-CCM), who wanted to know if the government was planning to build water infrastructure in schools in order to contain outbreaks of diseases.
She said shortage of water in some schools causes diseases to students especially girls and that there must be a special programme to resolve the problem.
On primary schools, the deputy minister said so far, a total of 20,509 primary schools have reliable water sources, with 10,965 having piped water, 4,966 using wells and 4,578 harvesting rainwater.
He said the government’s strategies for building water infrastructure in schools to prevent disease outbreaks include ensuring that new school constructions incorporate water systems such as rainwater harvesting, connections to municipal water supplies and the digging of wells.
Also, the government is ensuring that the construction of toilet infrastructure includes facilities for running water and using part of the capitation grant to repair water infrastructure.
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