Core questions and indicators for monitoring WASH in Schools in the Sustainable Development Goals

This document presents recommended core questions to support harmonised monitoring of WASH in schools as part of the SDGs. The questions map to harmonised indicator definitions of “basic” service and to service ladders that can be used to monitor progress. They are intended for use in national or sub-national facility surveys and census questionnaires. If national and sub-national surveys use the questions and response categories in this guide, it will help to improve survey comparability over time and between countries, as well as harmonise data with the SDG definitions for WASH in schools.

The questions in this guide were agreed upon by the Global Task Team for Monitoring WASH in Schools in the SDGs, convened by the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water and Sanitation (JMP). They are based on the current global norms, existing national standards, questions in national censuses and multi-national surveys, global WASH in schools monitoring recommendations, and normative human rights criteria: availability, acceptability, accessibility and quality.

National estimates will likely derive from national monitoring systems using self-report questionnaires (e.g. Education Management Information Systems, EMIS) as well as facility surveys that collect data via interviews and observation by trained enumerators