The Basic Department of Education has vowed to eradicate pit latrine toilets in schools across the country by 2025.
During a media briefing, Minister of Education Angie Motshekga tabled developments in the sector that included an update on infrastructural issues in schools.
There are currently more than 900 pit toilets in South African schools. These are mainly found in rural schools in Eastern Cape, Limpopo, and KwaZulu-Natal.
In 2013, the department adopted the minimum uniform norms and standards for public school infrastructure which banned pit toilets in schools and created a legal responsibility for the department and provincial departments to eradicate them.
In 2019, the department celebrated a handover of newly built toilets at Ubuhle-Bemvelo Primary School in KwaZulu-Natal.
Eradicating pit toilets…. pic.twitter.com/TEQn5lA1bM
— Dep. Basic Education (@DBE_SA) March 12, 2019
However, it has since missed several of its deadlines to eradicate pit toilets at the various affected schools.
In the latest incident, four-year-old Langalam Viki drowned in a pit latrine toilet in Vaalbank in Eastern Cape earlier in March.
Motshekga said the department has identified 3 398 schools countrywide with pit latrine toilets.
“When the president launched the SAFE [sanitation appropriate for education] project, he also mobilised businesses to support government. We allocated 184 schools to them, and to date 117 schools have been completed,” she said.
She also clarified that the department is not removing itself of its responsibility in the matter.
“It’s a very sad death for a young kid at four to be found at the tank of the pit latrines at the back of the toilets, and I don’t want to ask many questions to say why a child from the ECD [early childhood development] goes to the senior part [of the school].”
She said these tragedies serve as a painful reminder that the upgrade to school infrastructure needs to be expedited.
Motshekga promised that the government is working around the clock to build appropriate infrastructure in schools.
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