School sanitation needs more than rhetoric

South Africa’s school infrastructure still poses a great threat to the safety and development of its children. In developed areas, the provision of classrooms, electricity, water and sanitation facilities has been extensive but nearly the opposite has happened for underprivileged areas. Taking into account the huge school infrastructure backlogs in the majority of schools built by the

The safety and healthy development of South Africa’s children are crucial and should be prioritised. Access to proper water and sanitation is a basic right that children in underdeveloped areas struggle apartheid government, as to have. well as limited public By Ziyanda Majodina funds during the postapartheid years, improving the provision and quality of school infrastructure has proved to be a daunting task. Regardless of far-reaching praise for the country’s progressive Constitution – which entrenches the unqualified right to basic education – as well as consistent lip service advocating the importance of basic education for alleviating poverty and inequality, the South African democratic state has failed to make toilets in schools safe for schoolchildren. According to Section27, a publicinterest law centre that uses and

The provision of better sanitation directly impacts children’s learning abilities, as it mainly affects learners’ enjoyment of the environment – which enables the enjoyment of other rights such as the right to education

develops the law to promote and advance human rights, students and teachers suffer the most atrocious conditions with the sanitation facilities provided and the rights of children are infringed upon on a daily basis.

This is reinforced by the July 2021 report on water and sanitation by the South African Human Rights Commission, which revealed that over a million learners and teachers either have no access to sanitation or still use pit toilets.

TABLE 1 Number of schools with no water and affected teachers and learners

Province

Eastern Cape Free State Limpopo North West

Number of schools with no water for sanitation Number of teachers affected Number of learners affected

199 3006 63 676 10 213 6 936 113 1427 49 741 44

366

783 2 298

5 429 122 651

TABLE 2 Number of schools using pit latrines and affected teachers and learners

Number of schools Province

using pit latrines Number of teachers affected Number of learners affected

Eastern Cape Free State Limpopo North West 2 236 24 705 653 516 983 12 978 349 826 59 885 30 270

19

3 297

175 5 505

38 743 1 039 117

Pit toilets A pit latrine is a type of toilet that collects human faeces in a hole in the ground. Urine and faeces enter the pit through a drop hole in the floor, which might be connected to a toilet seat or squatting pan for user comfort. Pit toilets can be built to function without water or can have a water seal, being a pour-flush pit latrine.

In January 2014, it was reported that five-year-old preschool learner Michael Komape from Limpopo had fallen and drowned in a school pit latrine. Two years later, five-year-old Oratilwe Dilwane suffered severe injuries after falling into a pit latrine in his school in the North West province. In 2018, another five-year-oldlearner, Lumka Mketwa, drowned in a pit latrine at a school in the Eastern Cape.

The conditions of school toilets prove that the right to education in a safe and decent place to learn has been infringed upon. Below is an excerpt from the South African Schools Act (No. 84 of 1996): ‘Regulations relating to minimum uniform norms and standards for public school infrastructure’, which was gazetted in November 2013: 12. Sanitation (1) All schools must have a sufficient number of sanitation facilities that is easily accessible to all learners and educators, provide privacy and security, promote health and hygiene standards, comply with all relevant laws and are maintained in good working order. (2) The choice of appropriate sanitation technology must be based on the

In developed areas, the conditions of school toilets are the complete opposite assessment conducted on the most suitable sanitation technology for each particular school. (3) Sanitation facilities could include one or more of the following: (a) Water borne sanitation; (b) small bore sewer reticulation... Since as far back as 2013, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) banned pit toilets for use in schools. Thus, according to the DBE’s own standards, pit toilets are unlawful.

Acknowledging the urgent need for safe and hygienic sanitation during the Covid-19 pandemic, the DBE spent R600 million on the provision of emergency water and sanitation infrastructure. While these temporary solutions are necessary and certainly

welcome, they are a short-term solution to a historical problem, which needs to be addressed systematically and sustainably. Furthermore, the DBE did not receive additional money to fund these interventions: instead, the money for these costly emergency Covid-19 sanitation facilities was drawn from already stretched budgets for school infrastructure, at the expense of planned infrastructure projects.

Water seen as a privilege, not a right In the ‘For water for life’ podcast’s 17th episode, entitled Water and security (www.jojo.co.za/for-water-for-lifepodcast), Elizabeth Biney, researcher at Equal Education, says: “So, in some areas, water is not an issue, access to water is not an issue; in other areas, it is a privilege. Where access to water is deemed a privilege and not so much a human right, we see that sanitation infrastructure is very poor and that having a flushing toilet is unimaginable.”

In 2020, the UN estimated that a fifth of South Africans live in extreme poverty. Education is a powerful tool for changing that. South Africa’s Constitution is applauded for its expansion on human rights, dignity, equality and freedom, which was a necessary framework following apartheid rule, which was a crime against humanity.

The provision of better sanitation directly impacts children’s learning abilities, as it mainly affects learners’ enjoyment of the environment. “The way we use water, the way we think about water and the way we interact with water needs to improve and needs to change. And we need to think about it holistically and not just [as] a thing that we pay for and just drink for our body. It has social implications,” Biney adds.

SAFE initiative Government’s efforts to intervene in issues around pit toilets, poor infrastructure and backlogs include the introduction of the Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) initiative, whose aim is to attempt to eradicate basic pit toilets in schools. This initiative is hampered by generally slow delivery.

Not having a reliable, clean water supply – provided by tanks, taps and other forms of easily accessible water – leads to unfortunate events such as the loss of lives of young children. Another pressing issue is the backlog of fixing the infrastructure of classrooms, classroom desks and the maintenance of the infrastructure that already exists.

“We are looking at the related services or facilities that enable teaching and learning to happen smoothly and properly: the access to electricity, the water issue, the toilets issue and the classroom space,” says Biney. The Eastern Cape in particular faces the issue of poor infrastructure where most schools are still made of mud, zinc and asbestos; in Limpopo, the issue of water and sanitation is extreme.

Also on the podcast, Afua Wilcox, architect and doctoral student, says, “Now we still have all this infrastructure – water systems and water drainage – that was built over 50 years ago. It is old and was not necessarily well maintained.

“Infrastructure is suffering because it falls through the cracks – a lot of our budgets are going towards Sandton instead of the CBD. Sandton is in the north of Johannesburg as opposed to the centre of the city and all the money that could be used to overlap and create a bigger and more well-maintained Johannesburg CBD has developed two divided CBDs; thus the maintenance budget has been spread sparsely,” Wilcox adds.

In the time Section27 has been monitoring school sanitation, there have been a few ostensible attempts by either the Limpopo Department of Education or the Department of Basic Education to improve the situation. However, these attempts have been incomplete, poorly coordinated, and based on inaccurate data.

In conclusion Irrespective of the commendable South African Constitution and Bill of Rights, the issue of clean water and proper sanitation in less privileged provinces and schools is dire.

The protection of young lives and striving to ensure equal developmental opportunities are granted should be prioritised. There needs to be both commitment and action to maintaining schools and providing clean water.

All schools must have sufficient sanitation facilities, which are easily accessible to all learners and educators

The condition of school toilets proves that the right to education in a safe and decent place to learn has been infringed upon