Monitoring WASH and school dropouts in India: Is there adequate data? An assessment of four national databases

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are crucial to human development. Lack of WASH affects girls’ health and school attendance, particularly after puberty. This has long-term consequences on gender equality and empowerment. Several international (like the World Health Organisation's WASH standards, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (4, 5 and 6)) and national initiatives (like The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009, the Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya campaign and guidelines for menstrual hygiene management) are expected to address this issue in schools. There is a need to systematically and regularly collect and disseminate WASH data on school infrastructure facilities and attendance details. This would help assess the achievement of better WASH infrastructure and examine how much it reduces school dropouts. We assess four national-level databases routinely used for studies in human development – India Human Development Survey, National Family Health Survey, National Sample Survey Office and the Unified District Information System in Education. Our study finds limited data availability, making assessing the extent of target achievement difficult. It underscores the need for re-orienting data collection on school attendance and WASH school infrastructure.