ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Malaysian students are refusing to use the toilets at school because they perceive these facilities to be damp and dirty, according to the country's politicians.

And some pupils are regularly skipping breakfast so that they can resist the urge to use the toilets between classes. "Due to poor ventilation, the toilets remain wet throughout the day," claimed senior education minister Datuk Radzi Jidin speaking at the Education Transformation Council: Safe and Conducive Educational Infrastructure.

"There are students who only eat after they have returned home. They refuse to use the school toilets because they are dirty, and students fear that they might dirty their clothes." The ministry pledges to improve washroom design to make the facilities more welcoming for students and teachers.

The public washrooms in Malaysia often attract criticism for being dirty or smelly and regularly feature in "world's worst washrooms" lists online. In 2019, the then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he was "embarrassed" by the country's dirty and smelly public toilets, which he said reflected the poor civic responsibility of Malaysians.

However, some venues in the nation are seeking to compensate by introducing state-of-the-art washrooms. For example, in December 2021 it was announced that a block of IoT-supported smart toilets were to be installed at a shopping precinct in Malaysia's Klang Valley.

The facilities at the Sunway Pyramid shopping mall are designed to monitor various parameters including air quality, temperature and humidity. They also incorporate ammonia sensors that transmit data to a cloud service enabling facility managers to track foul smells through a web platform or mobile app. And any smells can then be managed and eliminated.