The Telegraph report on the Nadia drive

Midnapore, May 18: Taking a cue from Nadia, West Midnapore has sent soaps and nail clippers to primary schools to ensure the personal hygiene of students, many of whom come from little educated or poor families.

Teachers have been asked to clip the nails of students, wash their hands with soap and ensure that they use school toilets.

The primary school coun-cil sent “health kits” contain- ing soaps, nail clippers and disinfectants to 4,667 schools in the district to launch the drive last month.

The exercise started in the 2,700 primary schools in Nadia a year ago following a survey by the health department that showed over 20,000 children in the district suffered from diarrhoea, gastro-enteritis and other stomach ailments.

Health officials said it was important to create awareness about personal hygiene among the children because a large number of them came from poor families where awareness was low.

As in Nadia, the West Midnapore teachers have been told to inspect students’ nails when they come to school and make sure they wash their hands before their midday meal. The teachers also have to see to it that the children clean their teeth with toothbrush or fingers after their meal.

“Our aim is instil a basic sense of hygiene among children. If they pick up their hygiene lessons in school, it will become a habit with them to stay clean,” said Braja Gopal Poyra, the chairman of the district primary school council.

Schools would dig a hole inside or near the compound for students to dump papers, plastic packets and other garbage. The pits will be cleaned periodically.

“We will also set up teams comprising school inspectors to check the implementation of the new scheme,” said Santosh Patra, the district inspector of schools (primary).

West Midnapore has one primary teacher for every 30 children.

Sagar Ghosh, the headmaster of Keshpur Primary School, said: “We were having a tough time initially with students as they did not know the use of nail clippers. It was also a tough job for three teachers to wash hands and cut nails of 135 students. But things are better now. Class III and Class IV have already picked up the use of nail clippers. ”

The schools closed for summer vacation on May 9.

Rekha Pal, who teaches in a Kharagpur primary school, said it would need hard work to make the drive a success. “Most students in our school come from poor tribal families. We have to work very hard to instil a sense of hygiene in them,” she said.