South Africa: The Department of Basic Education is trying to evade accountability

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is trying to evade accountability by removing deadlines in the draft amended regulations relating to minimum norms and standards of school infrastructure, Amnesty International South Africa said. 

The deadlines are a mechanism used to hold DBE accountable.

This is particularly concerning for Amnesty International South Africa, which has been pushing the DBE to eradicate illegal pit toilets in schools around the country by 2023. 

It is also concerning that the guidelines on what information needs to be provided in plans by the department have also been removed, meaning that it will be difficult to also hold provincial education departments accountable. 

“The state has an obligation to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the right to basic education, a right which has been recognised by the Constitutional Court of South Africa as immediately realisable,” Amnesty International South Africa Executive Director Shenilla Mohamed said. 

“The human rights of all learners to safety, dignity, and quality education must be centred and prioritised in all education laws and policies.”

Amnesty International South Africa has made a submission on the proposed amendments to the Regulations Relating to Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure.

In its submission, Amnesty International South Africa said it recognised the need to revise and strengthen existing regulations, so that they aligned to the Eastern Cape High Court judgment in the case of Equal Education vs the Minister of Basic Education and others and welcomed the amendments that did so. 

However, the organisation raised specific concerns related to the proposed amendments of regulation 4 (“Implementation of Regulations”). 

These were:

• The removal of deadlines to comply with the regulations (section 2(b) of the

amendments).

• The absence of guidelines on the content required for departmental plans and progress reports (sections 2(f) and 2(h) of the amendments).

“The observations and recommendations we made are based on South Africa’s obligations under both national and international human rights law and standards, including the South African Constitution and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“the International Covenant”),” Shenilla Mohamed said. 

“The submissions are made with the aim of strengthening regulations to ensure that there are no further delays to the full realisation of the right education. Inherent in the right to education is the right to good quality education.” 

One of the key components of good quality education, as outlined by the United Nations Children’s Fund, is a healthy, hygienic, and safe learning environment, with adequate water and sanitation facilities. 

“This is not the case in all South African schools. The DBE has been repeatedly moving the deadline when it comes to eradicating pit toilets and ensuring that all schools have proper and safe sanitation facilities, and in so doing continuing to fail learners,” Shenilla Mohamed said. 

“These illegal pit toilets are not only violating the right to sanitation which is enshrined in the Constitution, but also the right to health, education, dignity, privacy whilst in some cases posing a serious risk to the right to life.”

As noted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, “poor quality of education constitutes a severe limitation on the fulfilment of the right to education.”

Amnesty International South Africa has recommended that concrete timeframes remain in the amended regulations to aid the planning and budgeting process of government and to ensure accountability against time-bound targets. 

“We urge the department to account for why the original deadlines were missed,” Shenilla Mohamed said. 

“In order to rectify the missed deadlines, we further recommend that the DBE immediately release national and provincial action plans with concrete targets and deadlines for addressing all school infrastructure that requires upgrading and for these plans to be made available to the public within the next two months.”

Read Amnesty International South Africa’s full submission here. 

Background

On 10 June 2022, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga gazetted draft amendments to the regulations relating to minimum uniform norms and standards for public school infrastructure for public comment. The deadline for submissions was 30 days. 

After an outcry from civil society organisations, given that these were not on the department’s website, nor had they publicly announced the call for submissions, the deadline for public comment was extended to the end of July. 

Amnesty International South Africa, will be joining Equal Education and other civil society organisations, at a  demonstration outside the DBE on Friday, 8 July, demanding that the department ensures that any changes made to the norms and standards do not hinder access to quality education for any child in South Africa.