Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Resources Available at Higher Education Institutes of Sindh and Students’ Satisfaction

Abstract

The present study was focused on the available Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities and students’ satisfaction in three public and two private Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) of Hyderabad and Jamshoro city. This cross-sectional study recorded WASH facilities in 21 departments of 5-HEIs and satisfaction appraisal of 630 students in total. The survey was also supplemented with quality analysis of Point of Use (PoU) drinking water. The results revealed that the overall 85.7 and 47.6% contamination of the drinking water samples were recorded due to total and thermo-tolerant coliforms, respectively. Further, physiochemical parameters were found in the permissible limits as provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and arsenic was not detected in any of the water samples. In total 25% of the toilet facilities were found nonfunctional. All monitored HEIs were found having sufficient quantity of water however, 95% hand-washing stations did not supply soap/ detergent for hand-washing. Moreover, this study divulges that there is a significant relationship between WASH facilities like water quality (χ 2= 7.55*; p=0.023), toilets functioning (χ 2= 45.39**; p=0.002), and washing facilities (χ 2= 37.29**; p=0.000) in HEIs and student’s satisfaction in HEIs. Thus, it can be concluded that the poor WASH facilities in HEIs could affect the students’ satisfaction leading to affect their performance in the studies, negatively.