A UNIVERSITY is teaching migrant students how to use a toilet correctly after complaints from cleaners that they were leaving them in an unhygienic state.

The toilet lessons, given on a poster on the backs of cubicle doors at Macquarie University, come after opposition citizenship spokeswoman Teresa Gambaro said migrants should be taught to use deodorant and wait in line, The Daily Telegraph reported.



Posters put up by the university show a person standing on the toilet seat and squatting over the bowl with a line through it. Another crossed-out image shows a person squatting on the floor.

Students are taught how to use sanitary bins, how to flush the toilet and wash their hands in other parts of the diagram under the heading: Protecting each other, use of female toilets.

A person sitting on the toilet seat is marked with a tick.

The signs were installed 15 months ago after complaints from a company contracted to clean campus toilets.

"We received a complaint from our cleaning contractors about the state of some toilets, they believed that some students may have been squatting above the toilet rather than using them in a conventional western fashion, they were concerned about the cleanliness." a Macquarie University spokesman said.

"They thought it was a health concern and they raised it with the management of the university. We put those posters around the campus in collaboration with the international students group and got advice on what information should be contained."

He said the problems had stopped since the signs went up.

Ms Gambaro was forced into an embarrassing apology this week after she suggested migrants on work visas should be taught about hygiene.

The comments caused outrage and Ms Gambaro apologised and said she had been taken out of context.

She later said her comments calling for migrants to have lessons covering the use of deodorant and how to wait in line were not Coalition policy.

"Without trying to be offensive, we are talking about hygiene and what is an acceptable norm in this country when you are working closely with other co-workers," she said.