Nashik education officer launches Selfie with Toilet competition; sparks tension

On November 14, the district education officer issued an order instructing schools to celebrate World Toilet Day on November 19, for which schools are expected to organise various activities. Schools were asked to hold competitions and accept entries, following which results would be declared on November 19.

The ‘Selfie with toilet’ competition sparked tension among schools and educationists after the Nashik district education officer passed an order asking students of all government schools to participate in the competition and sketch their ‘dream toilet’. While the competition was launched with the intent of hygiene, awareness and celebrating World Toilet Day, it failed to gather positive reactions from schools and teachers.

On November 14, the district education officer issued an order instructing schools to celebrate World Toilet Day on November 19, for which schools are expected to organise various activities. Schools were asked to hold competitions and accept entries, following which results would be declared on November 19.

The order stated that on the occasion of World Toilet Day, a ‘Clean Toilet Campaign’ has been launched, as part of which competitions and activities have to be arranged for students from classes IV to X on the theme ‘Sanitisation and groundwater’.

Apart from ‘selfie with toilet’, schools were also directed to include other activities such as drawing competitions on topics, ‘My dream toilet’, ‘My school, My safe toilet’. Entries for street play competitions on topics of ‘My school, my toilet’ and ‘Hygienic ways of using toilet’ were also invited. While these are competitions for students, teachers are also expected to participate in slogan-making competitions on the subject of clean toilets and healthy habits. All competitions are to be held online.

The order was issued by the Education Officer of Nashik Zilla Parishad (ZP), B D Kanoj, who was not available for comment.

However, schools and educationists have questioned the rationale behind such a competition. Teachers said the focus of the government should be to provide clean and functional toilets, instead of asking students to take selfies with them.

One of the teachers told the Indian Express that to the recent data under the Unified District Information System for Education report. According to the data, in Maharashtra, of 65,639 government schools, 64,581 have toilets. Moreover, toilets are functional in only 62,038 of them.

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