Problem of poor quality drinking water in some rural schools

Nearly a quarter of rural schools have substandard drinking water, according to a GNS study.

The GNS study which analyzed water samples from 245 rural schools found that 59 of them did not fully meet the requirements.

The study found E coli present in 20 schools, while other schools had problems with levels of arsenic, mercury, lead and manganese.

This can require costly repairs and maintenance, since more than 400 schools across the country rely on their own water supply rather than the city connection.

New Zealand Rural Schools Leadership Association president Andrew King said although his school now has a new borehole and state-of-the-art water system, it has not always been the case.

“We’ve had issues with manganese and iron levels and a bore that should have been replaced a long time ago, but of course you’re dependent on additional funding and the process of getting that funding to replace it.”

King said he knows of at least one school that has had to use bottled water for most of this year because of arsenic levels in its water supply.

The school is doing what it can to resolve the problem, he said.

“It’s just going through the system to try to process it the way it needs to be processed, which isn’t fast enough.”

Schools could ask the Department of Education to pay for bottled water, “but it’s a pretty lengthy process to get to that point,” he said.

Rural schools did not have a centralized way to collect centralized information about their water services, but a process was underway to try to obtain that data, he said.

“We have relied on our self-governing schools to manage their own water services for too long and this has not been adequately monitored beyond monthly water testing.”

The boards are a group of parent volunteers and rural school staff are experts in teaching and learning rather than water management, he said.

“Most of us don’t have any of the skills and expertise needed to truly understand whether our water services are up to standard and, frankly, there aren’t enough people in our communities who can be the reference person to support us.

Rural school water systems should be centralized and some form of quality assurance is necessary, he said.

Schools must also be supported by the appropriate expertise. There are two people in the Ministry of Education who have this knowledge, but two people for the whole country is not enough, he said.

Schools were required to have drinking water safety plans, but only about a third of schools had completed their water services plan, he said.

“The reason the other two thirds have failed to do this is because they do not have the expertise, time, resources to do it and no additional resources are provided for the do either.”

King said he believes the best way to deal with the increase in schools with water safety plans would be to bring in a company or individual with the expertise to collect the data at name of schools.

“And then that solves another problem because it’s efficient to have one company in charge of a standardized way of collecting all this information and then that means the right data and consistent data is collected.”

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