The United Nations Children Funds (UNICEF) says the toilet-pupil ratio in public primary schools in Katsina State is ‘’one toilet per 161 pupils’’ (1:161) on the average.
Mr Muntaka Mukhtar, the UNICEF Katsina State Education Specialist, disclosed this on Thursday in Katsina while presenting the state’s Annual School Census for 2015/2016.
Mukhtar put the primary schools enrollment in the state at 1,549,157 sharing a total of 9,631 toilets across the 34 local government areas of the state.
He said that Bakori Local Government Area had the highest number of primary schools with 476 toilets being used by 76,587 pupils.
He said Baure Local Government Area had the least with 46,172 pupils sharing 144 toilets in the primary schools.
Mukhtar also revealed that only 36 per cent of the schools had source of water, while the remaining 64 per cent had none at all.
He further said that 696 primary schools had no health facility, which represents only 31 per cent of those who did not have.
According to him, 36 per cent of the schools were without good black boards, 34 per cent held classes outside and 61 per cent had insufficient seats.
He pointed out that UNICEF was ready to provide 500 water and sanitation facilities in primary schools in the state in 2017.
He said that would assist to improve both personal and environmental hygiene in the schools which would also assist to prevent outbreak of diseases.
He further explained that the state had a total of 13,611 teachers, representing 70 per cent of qualified teachers, out of which 10,117 were males, and 3,494 were females.
According to him, Katsina zone has 57 per cent of qualified teachers, followed by Funtua zone with 26 per cent, while Daura zone was the least with 25 per cent.
He said that the pupil-classroom ratio for the state was 113 pupils per classroom.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Annual School Census (ASC) is conducted to generate accurate and reliable data for education planning purposes.
UNICEF provides both technical and financial support to conduct the census (NAN)