The timeframes established for the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to address infrastructure issues at schools across the country have been eliminated because of changes made to the norms and standards for public school infrastructure by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga.
This is even though adequate infrastructure is crucial in a learning environment. The elimination of the three-year deadlines is likely to make it more difficult for the legal community and civil society to hold government officials accountable, according to the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC).
While discussing their organisation’s stance on the matter, Tarryn Cooper-Bell, a Senior Attorney at the EELC stated that despite notable improvements since the adoption of the scheduling regulation in 2013, removing these deadlines would be a setback.
As of November 2016, we should have had no schools with unreliable water supply, we should have had no schools with only pit latrines.
She added that these startling figures continue to exist, highlighting the importance of the deadlines because if the DBE does not adhere to them, action will be taken and they will be held accountable.
The organisation has been vocal about the education department’s proposed changes to the school infrastructure scheduling laws. In instituting legal action against the department, they requested that the court instruct Minister Motshekga to make the reports public as soon as she receives them.
The reports in question are those that state that provincial education departments are required to provide to Minister Motshekga outlining their status and intentions for repairing schools and constructing new schools. They requested that the court instruct Minister Motshekga to make the reports public as soon as she receives them.
Read more: Activists Call Out Education Department On Infrastructure Backlogs
