Johannesburg – The Department of Basic Education has set next year as the deadline for the eradication of pit latrines at schools.
Two years does not seem like a long time, especially if you have been waiting for 27 years for this basic human right. But two years – even a single year – in education is a very long time.
It can determine whether a child stays in school or misses it for several days each month if it is a girl or woman teacher.
It can also determine whether a child drops out completely.
It can also be a matter of life and death, as we have experienced with five-year-old Michael Komape, who died in 2014 at Mahlodumela Primary School in Limpopo, after falling into a pit latrine.
