Building new warriors in WASH
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai just started one of India's first full-time residential PG programme on water, sanitation and hygiene. The name of the course is PG Diploma in WASH. The course is being run from TISS's rural campus Tulzapur and this is a one year course. In first batch 18 students from 10 different states from the age group of 22-40 years from inter disciplinary background have been opted for this innovative course. UNICEF Maharashtra was part of developing the course along with representatives of civil society organisations of Maharashtra working on water and sanitation issues and government officials from water supply and sanitation department.
There has always been a vacuum in this sector in terms of trained WASH professionals as in India we do not offer such courses. Largely professionals come from civil, environment, public health , social sector and there has always been a debate whether WASH to be managed by engineers or public health professionals. But, ideally we need a mix and it is very difficult to get a balance skill under conventional teaching programme in India.
It is now a proven fact GoI and the federal state governments only with Government machinery cannot make India open defecation free. We need to open up the system of rural sanitation programme.
In 2008, out of 160 million rural households, 42 million are using improved toilets and 118 million are not. In 2015, 167 million rural households are projected forIndia and at least 87 million should have improved toilets for India
Each year the government departments manage to cover 3 million rural households with improved toilets. At the end of 7 years, the gap will stand at 45 – 7*3 = 24 million rural households. If NGO involvement in achievement of MDG in sanitation is to be encouraged, the number of non-government professionals needed is as follows:
24m/(355*5) = 13,521
If each NGO were to have 25 employees, then 541 NGOs dedicated to working on rural sanitation are needed for achievingIndia
There has always been a vacuum in this sector in terms of trained WASH professionals as in India we do not offer such courses. Largely professionals come from civil, environment, public health , social sector and there has always been a debate whether WASH to be managed by engineers or public health professionals. But, ideally we need a mix and it is very difficult to get a balance skill under conventional teaching programme in India.
It is now a proven fact GoI and the federal state governments only with Government machinery cannot make India open defecation free. We need to open up the system of rural sanitation programme.
In 2008, out of 160 million rural households, 42 million are using improved toilets and 118 million are not. In 2015, 167 million rural households are projected for
Each year the government departments manage to cover 3 million rural households with improved toilets. At the end of 7 years, the gap will stand at 45 – 7*3 = 24 million rural households. If NGO involvement in achievement of MDG in sanitation is to be encouraged, the number of non-government professionals needed is as follows:
24m/(355*5) = 13,521
If each NGO were to have 25 employees, then 541 NGOs dedicated to working on rural sanitation are needed for achieving
Hence, there is a demand for trained professionals in this sector. At present WASH sector is more tilted towards the social issues and somewhere we compromise the entire technology innovation in rural set up.
Keeping all this in mind the said programme has been designed. Now TISS and the students need support to spread the word everywhere so that young guns of India can pursue this course from every corner of India and at the same time they get good placements.
What is absolutely remarkable is the way the course would be delivered - the students will be trained by the best practioners in the field. The first batch itself looks so promising. Best wishes to every one involved in this innovative process.
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