Across the world, schools operate on a single moral contract that children must be safe. Safe to learn, safe to grow, safe to return home healthier than when they arrived. Yet in Pakistan, that promise collapses under something embarrassingly basic. Hygiene. Not curriculum, not technology, not teacher shortages. Hygiene. Something so basic that international standards treat it as non-negotiable, but we still treat it like an optional extra.
WHO, UNICEF, and the CDC map school hygiene with precision: safe water accessible within 5 meters of classrooms, toilets separated by gender and maintained daily, trained janitorial staff certified in infection control, classrooms disinfected at least twice a day, and protocols to prevent cross-contamination across surfaces, washrooms, cafeterias, and transport. They expect colour-coded cleaning tools, proper PPE for janitors, documented cleaning logs, regular water testing, soap at every handwashing point, and hygiene taught as part of the curriculum from Grade 1. Not as a favour. As a standard.
Compare this with Pakistan, where regulatory structures, whether the provincial education departments or HEC ( Higher Education Commission) linked guidance for campuses, focus obsessively on buildings, curriculums, and teacher qualifications, yet treat hygiene as an afterthought. Where international standards are strict, quantified, and enforceable, ours are vague, cosmetic, and almost entirely unenforced. HEC guidelines call for “clean toilets,” “safe drinking water,” and “regular cleaning,” but offer no specifics on frequency, protocols, janitorial training, menstrual-hygiene management, cross-contamination prevention, or indoor-air quality. AGC(Academia Governance & Compliance)standards for schools are similarly skeletal, leaving schools to interpret “adequate hygiene” at their discretion. In practice, this means that even high-fee private schools can appear compliant on paper while exposing children to risk in reality.
And this isn’t just about low-income schools. Karachi’s public schools often struggle with broken infrastructure and nonexistent budgets, but top-tier private schools, the ones charging more per month than many households earn, are guilty of a polished façade that hides the same old problems. Shiny campuses, glossy brochures, smart boards in every classroom but the minute you open a bathroom door, reality hits. No soap. Damp floors. Rusted taps. Cross-contamination everywhere. Students sharing water bottles because working dispensers are out of stock. Janitors armed with a single grey mop that travels between washrooms, classrooms, and corridors like a courier of bacteria.
One detailed observation from a high-fee private school in DHA, Karachi is telling: after a minor stomach flu outbreak, a spot hygiene audit revealed that cleaning staff had never been trained in basic infection control, had no access to colour-coded tools, and used the same cloth to wipe desks, toilet handles, and cafeteria tables. That is what cross-contamination looks like. Invisible until it hits your child with fever, vomiting, or weeks of recurring infection. These schools can charge Rs 40,000–80,000 a month, but can’t justify Rs 2,500 worth of training per janitor. That gap isn’t a mistake, it’s negligence.
Public-sector schools reveal the uglier side of the crisis, where lack of funding and oversight collide. A government school in Korangi recently made headlines when sewage overflow flooded the playground for weeks. Girls’ washrooms in many public schools remain locked because they are either broken, dark, or unsafe. In interior Sindh, surveys show that nearly 42% of schools have non-functional toilets and 40% lack safe water entirely. Balochistan’s numbers are worse where only 29% of schools have safe drinking water. Millions of rural girls leave school once they hit puberty because their schools cannot provide private, functional washrooms or menstrual-hygiene facilities. These aren’t abstract statistics. They are children drinking contaminated water, falling sick, missing school, and in many cases dropping out entirely.
What makes it unforgivable is that the world already knows what to do. Internationally, countries treat school hygiene as a public duty, not an optional extra. Japan integrates daily classroom cleaning into the school curriculum, teaching responsibility and hygiene simultaneously. Singapore runs strict infection-control regimes, with mandatory janitorial training, PPE, and routine inspections. The UK enforces water-safety standards and monitors air quality, while India’s Swachh Vidyalaya campaign mandates separate toilets for girls, menstrual-hygiene facilities, and public reporting, improving attendance and reducing dropout rates. These systems combine training, infrastructure, and monitoring into enforceable, actionable standards which sadly, are all absent in Pakistan.
Janitors are the frontline defenders of student health, but in Pakistan they are untrained, underpaid, and invisible in policy. Globally, they are trained in infection control, safe chemical use, and cross-contamination prevention. Here, they walk in with no guidance, protecting hundreds of children without tools, training, or recognition. Classrooms, too, suffer. Internationally, desks, doorknobs, and surfaces are disinfected daily, but here, dusty surfaces, untested water dispensers, and inadequate cleaning schedules are the norm. Children come home sick every few weeks, and we call it “normal.” It’s not normal. It’s neglect.
The bitter truth is we have normalised the unacceptable. We have accepted that a school can call itself a school even without water. That high-fee institutions can outsource hygiene to luck. That girls should vanish from the system when their bodies change. That janitors can protect hundreds of children without proper training. And worse, we have accepted that no regulator will ever come to check.
The truth is simple, if Pakistan wants educated children, it must first give them healthy schools. Because no learning happens when toilets are dangerous, when water is contaminated, or when classrooms spread infection faster than knowledge. Until we align our standards with the world, audit schools like it matters, enforce hygiene like it protects our future, and train janitors like they are essential. Because they are. Otherwise, we will continue sending children to buildings that look like schools but do not function like them.
At the end of the day, a child who is sick cannot learn. A child who fears the school washroom cannot thrive. And a child who drops out due to a preventable, solvable hygiene barrier is not a tragedy, it is a catastrophe.
