The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has once again made promises to eradicate the problem of pit toilets within South Africa's schools.
This has been an ongoing initiative as part of the Department's plans to improve school infrastructure, which has been a long-standing issue in a number of schools across the country.
However, the Democratic Alliance (DA) as well as Equal Education (EE), have accused the DBE and Minister Angie Motshekga of not taking responsibility for the dangers posed by pit toilets.
South African schools have faced issues regarding appropriate sanitation facilities for many years and this has sometimes resulted in learners unfortunately losing their lives or sustaining serious injuries due to inappropriate sanitation facilities, such as pit toilets.
Initial research to solve this issue was done ten years ago and over the years, there have been backlogs in the improvement of school infrastructure, which has caused Provincial Departments to miss the deadline in which schools were no longer supposed to have pit toilets.
Equal Education (EE) is of the opinion that government has failed the poor and has shown no political will to get rid of pit toilets in schools, despite the danger they pose, particularly for young children.
The Minister recently announced that the Department has plans to get rid of pit toilets by 2025, and has admitted that not enough action has been taken to eradicate pit toilets at schools and provide adequate sanitation.
While this sounds hopeful, the Department made that same promise last year, stating that pit toilets would be eradicated by 2023, through its Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) initiative.
The Eastern Cape is one province in particular where the issue of insufficient school infrastructure is most prevalent.
According to the 2021 National Education Infrastructure Management System report, more than 1,400 schools in the Eastern Cape had pit toilets and dangerous incidents related to these toilets have been making headlines over the years.
"The Eastern Cape is still home to the biggest infrastructure backlogs generally, but when you look at the issue of plain pit latrines it is still much exacerbated in [this] province," says Itumeleng Mothlabane, Head of Equal Education in the Eastern Cape.
"Right now, we have about 1 473 pit latrines...as Equal Education, we have found it hard to say what is the exact number of pit latrines in the province, because of the under-reporting even from the Department of Education and other stakeholders," elaborated Mothlabane.
The lifeless body of a Grade R learner, Langalam Viki, was recently discovered in a pit latrine toilet at Mcwangele Primary School in Buffelsdings, Eastern Cape. The mourning mother, Nangamso Viki, believes that if the school had proper sanitation, the incident would not have happened.
Mothlabane says that the process of eradicating pit toilets in Eastern Cape schools, and replacing them with proper sanitation facilities, is "achingly slow."
"Earlier, when I was looking at the statistics when the President (in 2018) started the Safe Initiative, we had about 1 593 schools with pit latrines, so it shows that this year, since we have 1 473, there hasn't been much difference. And it's concerning because even those [schools] that are now off [the] statistics, it doesn't guarantee that they were provided with sanitation; it could be a school that was rationalized, which is something that we see more often from the Eastern Cape Department of Education as a 'cure' for schools that have bad infrastructure," says Mothlabane.
Motshekga stated that a number of schools have already dealt with the issue of pit-toilets, and the school where Langalam was found had, in fact, installed proper sanitation facilities. However, the school had yet to destroy the remaining pit toilets. Therefore, she reveals that the Department was doing what was required to deal with this issue.
"The death of a child is something really serious and it is unseemly to use that death to cast aspersions at government or paint a picture of an uncaring, under-performing government," said the Minister, adding that the circumstances surrounding Langalam's death were being investigated.
Learners losing their lives is an extreme result of the pit toilets crisis, but many also encounter serious health issues because of the undignified and unsafe manner in which they have to relieve themselves at schools.
"In some schools, if a learner is sick and they need to use the toilet more often, it means that on that particular day they miss an entire day of school. That also goes [for[ teachers who cannot use these undignified toilets, [instead] they go to their own homes, sacrificing time for teaching and learning," Mothlabane explains.
Having good infrastructure in schools can make it possible for children that live in remote areas to study and, in addition, it can improve the attendance, motivation and interest of students and teachers in learning. Without it, learning is made difficult.
The DA and Equal Education will be visiting schools across the country, calling for an end to pit toilets.
