Johannesburg – Equal Education (EE) took the fight to the Eastern Cape government over its lax approach in meeting the target for norms and standards for public school infrastructure.
In 2013, Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga signed the Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure.
The legislation was seen as an important milestone in eradicating poor learning conditions as it provides a benchmark for what schools should look like.
This included banning pit latrines and required that all schools have access to water, toilets and electricity by 2016.
The next norms and standards deadline states that, among other items, schools must have an adequate supply WE HAVE EXTENDED THE R350 SRD GRANT UNTIL JANUARY 2021. This means you can submit your application for the R350 SRD COVID-19 Grant from now until end of January 2021. Contact Us: 0800 60 10 11 of classrooms by November 29 2020.
EE hosted a gathering to encourage conversations between parents, pupils and the Eastern Cape department of education about progress and failures in meeting the 2020 deadline.
Jay-Dee Cyster from EE said the Eastern Cape government had been slow in getting its schools in the right shape.
“In the Eastern Cape, schools without electricity have decreased from 1 090 in 2013 to the 87 in the current progress report, but the law says that all schools should have had electricity by 2016,” said Cyster.
“It is difficult to get 100% accuracy on measuring progress in school infrastructure delivery because data sets provided by national and provincial departments of education contradict each other.
“For example, the 2019 progress report of the Eastern Cape department of education says there are 74 schools with no access to water, but the 2020 national education infrastructure management system says there are zero schools without water.
“Without accurate data it is almost impossible to plan and get rid of infrastructure backlogs on time.”
The Eastern Cape government did not respond to questions by the time we went to print.
Sunday World in July reported that the national government had spent about R800-million providing water and mobile toilets to schools across the country since the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
The Eastern Cape government had identified 970 schools with a need for rented toilets.
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