Instead of attending classes these girls from Morogoro Tanzania have to walk long distances to fetch water, and are deterred by the lack of separate and clean toilets in schools.

30,000 children die each day from contaminated water
85% of all diseases in African children under 5 are caused by water-borne illnesses
The United Nations reports that 20% of the world’s population struggles to gain access to safe drinking water every day

More than 1.5m children under five die each year because they lack access to safe water and proper sanitation, says the United Nations children's agency.
In a report, Unicef says that despite some successes, a billion people worldwide do not have access to safe drinking water from protected sources.

More than 1.2 billion people have gained access to safe water since 1990.

But sub-Saharan Africa remains a major area of concern, especially countries affected by conflict.
The UN hopes to halve the number of people without access to clean drinking water and sanitation by 2015.

But progress has slowed due to population increases and unexpectedly high migration to urban areas, say the World Health Organisation and Unicef

The Unicef report says that children's education suffers because they have to walk long distances to fetch water, and that girls especially are deterred by the lack of separate and clean toilets in schools.

Diarrhoea-related diseases in young children could be cut by more than a third in young children by improving sanitation facilities.