(MENAFN- Alghad Newspaper)
This isn't just about toilets, even though it may seem like it. A recent report by the Ministry of Health states after inspecting nearly one hundred schools in Amman that most the toilets in these schools are not fit for student use.
Of course, the main reason why the toilets in our schools are such a mess is because it received very little attention over the years.
School toilets need to be periodically maintained. Surely this is common sense.
Often, education and school administrations dismiss these issues as secondary to the grander matters at hand, like crowded classrooms.
In some schools have nearly 50 students per classroom, and some of them have to stand in class.
Let alone toilets, there are schools running without water for days on a row, sometimes more, not to mention the deterioration of the entire infrastructure.
The truth that toilets are equally important to the school as the classroom itself. Toilets are as vital to the education process in schools as the teaching halls, the curriculum, and the books themselves.
As much of a detail as the issue of toilets may sound to so many of us, a toilet is a critical detail to the student's daily life.
It is a vivid component of his perception of the education institution he goes to, and it correlates with the image of his school.
Unusable toilets, which are usually dirty and outright a massive mess, reflect a lot on the image children and teenagers construct of the school institution.
This is beside the fact of biological need.
Otherwise, it will affect their concentration and comprehension capacities, put aside their health!
Why do we always dismiss the details, even though in many cases details can be far more crucial that the big stuff which often preoccupy our minds!?
Why can't we just address these issues as given basics, as toilets for instance, instead of disregarding them and neglecting then!
Likely, our ministers and officials, including the Prime Minister, did not pay attention to the health ministry's report.
Why should they?
Those supposedly serving us are sending their kids off to private schools which provide at least the most basic requirement of necessary facilities.
Meanwhile, most of ours, the general public's kids, go to public schools.
Still, this doesn't affect them or their children, so why should they bother with the issues of the common Jordanian?!
Besides, they have a lot on their hands!
In truth, I know some wonder if I'd gone mad. Some would ask: what is this man talking about? Have we run out of problems to address as opposed to this miniature detail?! Are water circuits our biggest problems?!
Yes and no.
In a way, the issue of toilets, which I intentionally featured in this article, reflects the dysfunctional approach of public policy making.
We having at it the wrong way around, always biting more than we can chew, and leave the small stuff out, never to realise how significant these 'small details can be, for instance, to a 12-year old!
As Mohammad Jaber Ansari said: we sweep out imperialism from our countries while having failed to sweep the dust off our own doorsteps!
So much can be done to make the citizen's daily life better. Details, often dismissed as such, can greatly help restore the citizen-state relationship.
In fact, many such issues are simply priorities overlooked and dismissed as details, while having an immense effect on the citizen's life.
Make no mistake, issues like clean, working toilets in our public schools can do a lot for society, in terms of building culture and strengthening the sense of belonging among individuals.
Right now, students who make do with filthy toilets at schools think it is natural, even though these toilets are unhealthy and unfit for human use.
Most people who made through public school really can handle almost anything, accept a lot of injustices, as they have been conditioned into it over time.
Naturally, at this level of inhumanity, people can do all sorts of things!
The point is: value, culture, basic human rights.
Such are the values that are the cornerstone of a productive, healthy society. They should be at the heart of our conceptual and moral constructs, as students, teachers, citizens, and officials, no exceptions.
Cleanliness and health are not a matter of luxury nor a secondary aspect to our lives as human beings.
They are central to culture and civilisation.
Values of such significance should be introduced to students before they even begin to learn how to read and write in class.
On a simpler level, as an example, notwithstanding; unclean toilets at public schools lead unclean toilets at public and government departments. Subsequently, this leads to negligence and unclean toilets at tourist sites, which eventually makes us all look bad!
Do you remember the story of the Petra visitors? Before them, the Turks! Our former Ambassador in Ankara made incredible effort put Jordan on the map for Turkish tourists, and when they arrived the were shocked by the lacking and absence of facilities, notably clean toilets!
So, it is safe to say that this isn't just about the toilets. This is about the culture and values of administration, reflective only of the dysfunctional government approach, on many levels.
This article is an edited translation of the Arabic version, published by AlGhad.