Ghana’s School Sanitation Crisis: 6 in 10 Basic and Secondary Schools Lack Toilets and Water

A new performance audit by Ghana’s Auditor-General has unveiled a deeply troubling reality: 60% of basic and secondary schools across the country lack access to toilets and running water, placing students’ health, dignity, and education at risk.

The nationwide audit highlights a critical gap in Ghana’s progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), which commits countries to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” by 2030. With just five years remaining, Ghana is far from meeting this target.

According to the 2025 performance audit, only 2 in every 5 schools have functional toilet and urinal facilities with running water. This means thousands of public schools are operating below the minimum sanitation standards.

The situation is even more dire when measured against local legal requirements. The Pre-Tertiary Education Act (2020) mandates at least one toilet cubicle for every 50 students. Yet, an alarming 87% of schools do not meet this standard. At Tamale Islamic Science Senior High School, 4,591 students share a single KVIP toilet with just two squat holes. In Kumasi’s State Experimental 1 M/A Basic School, 169 students depend on just one toilet.

This crisis is more than an infrastructure failure—it is a public health emergency. Poor sanitation is causing students, especially girls, to miss school during menstruation, face health risks from infections, or resort to unsafe open defecation. In Tamale, some girls have reported using bushes or public toilets when school facilities are locked due to water shortages.

This is not a new problem. In 2010, the Ministry of Education rolled out a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) initiative under the Education Strategic Plan (ESP 2010–2020), aiming to equip 75% of basic schools with sanitation infrastructure by 2020. That goal has not been met.

The audit attributes part of the failure to poor planning and misplaced priorities. In many cases, Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) focus on building classrooms while neglecting sanitation needs. Some schools have water closet toilets that remain locked due to water shortages, while others have donor-funded toilet blocks that sit unused for years because they were never properly handed over.

Even in schools where toilets exist, maintenance is often neglected. The audit found disturbing conditions: faeces on floors, broken flushing systems, discarded sanitary pads, and filthy urinals. Cleaning schedules are not enforced, and many schools have never received basic cleaning materials.

This crisis forces children to make a heartbreaking choice—between attending school and preserving their dignity. For too many Ghanaian students, particularly girls, school has become a place of discomfort and risk instead of safety and growth.

Without urgent action, Ghana risks leaving a generation of students behind—not just academically, but in their most basic right to hygiene and human dignity.