Equal Education puts pressure on Edu Dept over pit toilets in schools
Pit toilets were completely banned from schools by the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure (the school infrastructure law) in 2013 and had to be removed and replaced by 2016.
POLOKWANE – Learners under the Equal Education (EE) organisation are on Friday (April 14) expecting an answer from management of the Limpopo Department of Education on reasons why the complete eradication of illegal pit toilets lags behind in some schools.
Members of the education activism movement, marched to the department’s offices in Polokwane yesterday (April 11) to submit a memorandum of demands that called for the immediate provision of mobile toilets to affected schools as a short-term interim intervention based on their implementation plan, while the department works swiftly in providing permanent proper toilets.
The march saw learners in uniform being ferried in buses to the meeting point at the SABC Park before demonstrating outside the department in Biccard Street and their memorandum was accepted by Dr Nomvula Ndebele, the director at the office of the departmental head.
“We will come to your schools to respond to your memo by Friday. We will in fact start working on your matter immediately,” Ndebele said.
Pit toilets were completely banned from schools by the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure (the school infrastructure law) in 2013 and had to be removed and replaced by 2016.
It has been 10 years since the introduction of the school infrastructure law and all of the sanitation delivery deadlines (2016 and 2020) have been missed.
Instead, a year later after the regulation was set in 2014, five year old Michael Komape died after he drowned in a pit toilet at Mahlodumela Primary School in Chebeng Village.
Read more: Boy (5) dies in school’s toilet
This drew international traction to the state of ablution facilities in schools.
EE facilitator, Sibongile Teffo says during their visit to 15 schools in March, they found that learners at Tutwana Primary, Seipone Secondary, and Kgolokgotla Secondary schools were still using pit toilets as their only form of sanitation.
“These structures are especially dangerous and inappropriate for younger children at Tutwana Primary School. The use of these illegal structures persists in schools despite several tragic cases of young children losing their lives,” Teffo said.
Meanwhile, the department’s latest progress report suggests that 52 priority one schools are still in the planning and design phases of development yet based on the department’s revised implementation plan submitted to the High Court in 2021, these schools should have received sanitation upgrades by March 2023 which has already lapsed.
