South Africa: The Department of Basic Education must urgently act to replace all pit toilets and fix poor education infrastructure

The Department of Basic Education must urgently act on its commitment to prioritise replacing all pit toilets in schools by 2023 with concrete actions, Amnesty International South Africa said.

Amnesty International South Africa on Tuesday launched its pit toilet tracker, which monitors how many schools in the country are still being subjected to inadequate ablution and sanitation. The organisation is also calling on people to continue signing a petition started in 2020 which has already more than 20,000 signatures demanding the DBE eradicate pit toilets in schools across South Africa.

“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,” Amnesty International South Africa’s Executive Director 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.” 

According to the 2013 Minimum Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure, all schools should be provided with sanitation by 29 November 2016, and be brought into compliance with the Norms and Standards by 29 November 2020, .

However, instead of meeting these targets the Department has repeatedly revised these deadlines saying initially that it planned to eradicate pit toilets by March 2022, only to tell the Polokwane High Court last year that in provinces like Limpopo this can only be achieved by 2030. – more than a decade later than the original timeline.

Current government data shows that South Africa still has 5,167 schools that do not have proper ablution facilities and still use pit toilets. However, it must be noted that data provided by the DBE regarding pit toilets in schools is not reliable.

According to a report released in September 2021 by the South African Human Rights Commission, over a million pupils and teachers are affected by the challenges of poor sanitation in our schools. In the Eastern Cape alone almost half (44%) of schools reported on are using pit toilets as their primary ablution facilities. A further 30% of schools reported on in the province use ventilated improved pit toilets. In KwaZulu-Natal, 83% of schools reported on are primarily reliant on pit toilets and ventilated improved pit toilets.

In line with the Minimum Norms and Standards, provincial education heads are required by law to hand over to the national Basic Education Minister their action plans on how they intended to implement the norms in their provinces. However, the latest reports that have been made available have been subject to criticism as both demonstrating a lack of sufficient progress as well as in some cases incomplete data.

“Despite the serious and continuing failure to meet its own binding regulations and associated targets and deadlines, as well as its international human rights obligations, the government has actually been cutting spending on infrastructure,” Shenilla Mohamed said.

“The government must eradicate all pit toilets in schools and ensure that all learners have access to safe and hygienic water and sanitation facilities.

“Authorities must fix the toilet crisis in South African schools to make sure that pupils learn in a safe environment, including making sure that there is hygienic water and sanitation to help them prevent diseases such as Covid-19. No more excuses and delays. Fix South Africa’s poor education infrastructure now,” Shenilla Mohamed said.

Background

In 2020 and 2021 Amnesty International South Africa released two reports on the state of Basic Education in South Africa. The reports titled South Africa: Failing to learn the lessons? The impact of COVID-19 on a broken and unequal education system and Broken and Unequal: The state of education in South Africa both highlighted stark inequalities in the education system, exposing how the infrastructure of many schools that serve poorer communities do not meet the government’s own “Minimum Norms and Standards” for educational facilities.