School WASH Facility Management Training Course

Course overview

School WASH facilities fail when responsibility is unclear, inspection records are incomplete, consumables are not replenished, and repairs are treated as isolated emergencies rather than managed assets. For education authorities, school leaders, NGO programme teams and facilities staff, the consequences include unsafe water access, unusable toilets, menstrual health barriers, absenteeism, reputational risk and investments that deteriorate before their intended service life. This course addresses the operational systems needed to keep water points, sanitation blocks, handwashing stations and waste-management arrangements functional throughout the school year.

Participants learn to assess WASH service levels, map facilities and asset condition, establish preventive maintenance schedules, plan consumables and minor repairs, and assign accountable roles across school management committees, caretakers, learners, local government and service providers. The course applies the WHO WASH standards for schools and UNICEF Three Star Approach to practical school settings, including accessibility, safeguarding, menstrual hygiene management, water-quality monitoring, cleaning standards, drainage, solid waste and emergency preparedness. Participants also work with service-level indicators, inspection checklists, maintenance registers, budgets and escalation procedures.

Instruction combines expert-led technical sessions with school-based case studies, facility management simulations, group review of inspection data and hands-on work in KoboToolbox and QGIS. Participants build a School WASH Facility Management Plan for a realistic or selected school, including an asset register, risk-ranked maintenance plan, cleaning and consumables schedule, annual cost estimate, monitoring dashboard and role matrix. This is a working document that can be adapted for immediate use with a school, cluster or district portfolio.

The course is designed for practitioners who already work with school infrastructure, education programmes or WASH service delivery and need stronger operational control over facilities after construction or rehabilitation.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Conduct a school WASH service-level assessment using WHO indicators and structured facility inspections
• Build an asset register for water points, toilets, handwashing stations, drainage and waste-management facilities
• Develop a risk-based preventive maintenance schedule with inspection frequencies, task owners and escalation triggers
• Calculate annual cleaning, consumables, minor repair and lifecycle maintenance costs using a school WASH budget model
• Design cleaning protocols and duty rosters that address toilet usability, handwashing availability and menstrual hygiene needs
• Configure a KoboToolbox facility inspection form for mobile data collection and corrective-action tracking
• Map WASH facility condition and access gaps in QGIS to support school or district prioritisation decisions
• Produce a costed School WASH Facility Management Plan with monitoring indicators, governance roles and review dates

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• School Facilities Managers — who must keep water, sanitation and handwashing assets operational within constrained budgets
• Education Programme Managers — who oversee school quality, retention and safe learning environment interventions
• WASH Officers — who support schools after construction, rehabilitation or hygiene-promotion programming
• District Education Officers — who need consistent inspection, prioritisation and maintenance systems across multiple schools
• School Heads and Deputy Heads — who are accountable for daily facility use, cleaning arrangements and stakeholder coordination
• NGO Infrastructure and Field Coordinators — who manage contractors, school committees and post-construction sustainability requirements

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical familiarity with school operations, WASH programming, infrastructure supervision or facilities management. The course assumes that participants can read basic site plans or facility layouts, use spreadsheets for simple calculations, and understand common WASH terms such as water point, latrine, handwashing station, cleaning frequency and preventive maintenance. Experience conducting school visits or working with school management committees is helpful. Participants should bring a laptop capable of running a web browser and spreadsheet software. Engineering qualifications, advanced GIS experience, hydraulic design knowledge and prior KoboToolbox use are not required; tool-based exercises are guided step by step.

Training methodology

The five-day programme uses short technical briefings followed by applied facility-management work. Participants inspect a simulated school WASH dataset, identify faults from photographs and layouts, calculate maintenance costs, and test inspection workflows using KoboToolbox. Small groups apply WHO standards and the UNICEF Three Star Approach to contrasting rural, urban and emergency-affected school cases, then defend their prioritisation choices. Instructor feedback is provided on each component of the final management plan. The final session is an implementation-planning workshop in which participants define the first 90 days of action for their own school or portfolio.

Course outline

Day 1: School WASH service standards and facility diagnosis

• WHO WASH standards for schools and service-level definitions
• UNICEF Three Star Approach as a school improvement framework
• Functional, accessible and safely managed WASH service criteria
• School WASH facility typologies and critical asset components
• Structured walk-through inspections and photographic evidence rules
• Fault classification for water, sanitation, hygiene, drainage and waste systems
• Risk scoring for health, safeguarding, accessibility and continuity impacts

Workshop: Participants complete a risk-ranked inspection of a simulated school campus and produce a facility condition report with urgent corrective actions.

Day 2: Asset registers and preventive maintenance systems

• Asset register fields, coding conventions and location identifiers
• Component-level condition grading and remaining useful life estimates
• Preventive versus corrective maintenance decision rules
• Maintenance task libraries for toilets, water points and handwashing stations
• Inspection frequencies linked to usage, seasonality and failure history
• Repair escalation pathways and work-order documentation
• Roles and accountability matrices for schools, committees and local authorities

Workshop: Participants create an asset register and a 12-month preventive maintenance schedule for a case-study school.

Day 3: Cleaning, consumables and inclusive service management

• Cleaning standard operating procedures for school sanitation blocks
• Cleaner workload analysis and duty-roster design
• Consumables forecasting for soap, water-treatment supplies and cleaning materials
• Menstrual hygiene management facility and supply requirements
• Universal access features for learners with disabilities
• Student participation without unsafe or exploitative cleaning practices
• Drainage, solid waste and faecal sludge management coordination

Workshop: Participants design a cleaning and consumables management package, including protocols, stock cards, duty roster and monthly reorder calculation.

Day 4: Data, budgets and maintenance prioritisation

• KoboToolbox inspection form design and validation rules
• Mobile data collection workflows for routine school inspections
• Corrective-action logs and closure verification evidence
• Annual operating and maintenance cost categories
• Lifecycle costing for repair, rehabilitation and replacement decisions
• QGIS mapping of school WASH assets and service gaps
• Prioritisation matrices for limited district maintenance budgets

Workshop: Participants configure a KoboToolbox inspection form, analyse returned records and produce a costed maintenance priority list for a school cluster.

Day 5: Governance, monitoring and implementation planning

• School WASH governance structures and decision rights
• Service-level indicators and monthly performance dashboards
• Water-quality surveillance and incident response procedures
• Contractor and service-provider performance monitoring
• Emergency preparedness for water interruption, flooding and disease outbreaks
• School improvement planning and district reporting integration
• Ninety-day implementation roadmaps and review-cycle design

Workshop: Participants assemble and present a costed School WASH Facility Management Plan with indicators, assigned owners and a 90-day implementation roadmap.

Tools & standards covered

KoboToolbox, QGIS, WHO Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Standards for Schools in Low-cost Settings, UNICEF Three Star Approach for WASH in Schools

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions