Swachh Bharat: Swachh Vidyalaya (Clean India: Clean schools)

Swachh Bharat, Swachh Vidyalaya (SBSV), Clean India, Clean Schools is an initiative launched in 2015 that aimed to provide universal access to sex-segregated toilets in all 1.2 million government schools. Another aim is to improve the WASH curriculum and teaching methods while promoting hygiene practices and community ownership of water and sanitation facilities within schools. As a partner of choice for the Government of India, UNICEF has supported the development of the national framework for benchmarking schools along 39 WASH indicators – through the national school awarding system called Swachh Vidyalaya Puraskar (SVP), pushed aggressively by the Government in all states. The SVP has continued since 2016 with a brief two-year gap during 2019 and 2020. During the financial year 2021-22 the SVP was revised with the inclusion of 12 questions related to COVID-19 appropriate requirements in schools and few more questions related to functionality, operation and maintenance of WASH facilities, taking the total number of indicators to 52.