Filthy schools – Educational facilities failing public-health inspections

Scores of educational facilities in Portland, St Thomas, St James, and St Ann are failing to meet public-health standards for the safety of their students and staff.

A review of more than 600 institutional health forms obtained from the Ministry of Health under the Access to Information (ATI) Act showed that public-health inspectors from the southeast, northeast and west regional health authorities gave an unsatisfactory grade to the educational institutions based on close to 300 inspections – some of them repeat visits.

The bulk of the inspections were carried out in 2010 and 2011 with just a few included from 2009.

Most of the facilities deemed to be in a “satisfactory public-health state” were still flagged for some violations on the weighted instrument. An institution will be graded as being in an unsatisfactory public-health condition if it fails in any one of the critical areas outlined on the instrument, which includes absence of overcrowding, adequacy and potability of the water supply, waste disposal facilities, food-handling facilities and solid-waste management.

On one of the forms, the public health inspector noted that a “soakaway pit is covered by zinc and presents a safety hazard”.

Another facility was cited for having rodent droppings in the kitchen, while another had cockroach droppings, among a string of other concerns.

Some institutions were graded unsatisfactory because they failed the critical sanitary waste-disposal component of the inspection.

Poor ventilation problems, no pest-control system, and no fire extinguisher dragged down the rating of some facilities.

Nadine Molloy Young (pictured), president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), said that number was just too high.

“It’s too many, and those of us in the system who have responsibility for the schools have to lobby for it to be improved,” she said.

Molloy Young told reporters that the poor public-health conditions are caused by a combination of negligence on the part of administrators, a lack of government-provided resources, and vandalism by students.

Reasoning from her experience as principal of Buff Bay High, the JTA president said in September, most of the bathrooms are usually in a satisfactory condition, but that changes by the time January comes around. “There is just a culture of vandalising the stuff. The bathrooms are a tough one,” she conceded.

Of the 665 public-health inspections carried out in early childhood facilities, basic, primary and secondary schools in the parishes, 323 of them were deemed to be satisfactory.

The results on 51 of the forms were not clearly stated.

Molloy Young called for greater synergy between schools and the building unit in the education ministry to identify and remedy infrastructural problems plaguing schools.

Source: The Gleaner