In 2014, five-year-old Michael Komape died when trying to use the dilapidated pit latrine at his school in Chebeng village, Limpopo. He fell in and drowned in human waste. In March 2018, Lumka Mketwa, also five, suffered the same fate. Lister Magongwa, 7, died in 2013 after the walls of a toilet collapsed on him, as did Siyamthanda Mtunu, 6, in 2017. No schoolchild should have to face these horrors. But changes to school infrastructure grants, announced by the basic education portfolio committee on May 10, risk leaving schools without appropriate buildings or sanitation facilities.
At present, there are two main types of infrastructure grant: the education infrastructure grant (EIG), and school infrastructure backlog grant (SIBG). The latter includes the accelerated schools infrastructure delivery initiative (Asidi) programme and the sanitation appropriate for education (SAFE) programme. These programmes were established to ensure that all schools in SA have appropriate structures, water supply, electricity supply, sanitation and fencing, in line with the minimum norms and standards for public school infrastructure. The SAFE programme aimed to eradicate unsafe pit latrines.
The norms and standards were the hard-won result of litigation conducted by the Equal Education Law Centre representing Equal Education. The law centre welcomed the Asidi and SAFE programmes as a means of achieving compliance with the eradication of unsafe pit latrines. But now, the national department of basic education (DBE) and the National Treasury plan to terminate the SIBG. The Asidi and SAFE programmes are accordingly to end in March 2023.
Almost half of the 3,494 schools identified at the beginning of the programme in August 2018 are still using unsafe toilets or have no sanitation facilities at all
The backlog for SAFE is, according to the DBE, 1,549 schools. Assuming this number is accurate, this means that almost half of the 3,494 schools identified at the beginning of the programme in August 2018 are still using unsafe toilets or have no sanitation facilities at all. Even with the best will in the world, it is highly unrealistic that more than 1,500 SAFE projects will be carried out in less than a year. Phasing out the SIBG is clearly premature.
Moreover, the backlog figures are likely to be an underestimate. According to the DBE’s most recent Asidi backlog figures, there are 30 schools without appropriate structures, 48 schools without water supply, and 15 schools without adequate sanitation facilities. The DBE records no backlog for electricity supply or fencing. Compared with the SAFE backlog figures, these figures are relatively low. There is reason to doubt, however, that the DBE’s numbers are accurate. Communication between the DBE and the provinces is inefficient, provincial data is itself unreliable, and the interpretation of key concepts is sometimes incorrect.
Last year, in response to a question about the number of state schools meeting the minimum norms and standards for infrastructure, the minister of basic education, Angie Motshekga, provided a table showing that 100% of schools in every province had sanitation meeting the minimum standard. But, in the same table, the minister noted that 2,111 schools used only pit latrines. This strongly suggests that the DBE believes plain pit latrines are an acceptable form of sanitation, despite the norms and standards expressly prohibiting plain pit latrines in schools.
This response from the minister contradicts the figures presented by the DBE in May 2022, which acknowledge that some schools are in fact without adequate sanitation. This seriously brings into question the DBE’s classification of which schools are in need of infrastructure intervention. In short, the imminent end of Asidi and SAFE is highly ambitious, undoubtedly premature and will jeopardise the rights of pupils to safe infrastructure at their schools.
There have been dramatic changes to the EIG, too. Previously, provincial education departments were required to spend only 20% of their grant on maintenance. Now, the proportion available for maintenance has been increased to 60%. This drastically reduces the percentage available for larger infrastructure projects in a country where overcrowded classrooms and inadequate sanitation are all too common. It jeopardises the rollout of future building projects and is problematic and prejudicial to the rights of pupils.
Some provinces, such as the Western Cape, may be ready to focus on maintenance of existing infrastructure. Others, such as the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, have a long way to go before they reach that stage.
In many schools, there is no existing infrastructure to maintain. They need classrooms and sanitation facilities to be built for the first time. These provinces can apply for deviations from the required spending of the EIG, but they should not have to shoulder the burden of this additional paperwork and it is wrong that they are treated as the exception to the rule. Rather, the dangers faced by children in these provinces when they enter the school premises every day should have been considered when the new composition of the grant was determined in the first place.
Major funding decisions must be based on good information. In the Equal Education Law Centre's experience, the true state of education infrastructure across the country does not support such a drastic change to the composition of the EIG, and certainly does not support the termination of the SIBG or the programmes dedicated to attending to the backlogs.
Almost six years after the deadline imposed by the norms and standards, a great number of schools are still totally lacking in sanitation facilities. The other norms and standards deadlines have not been met, either. This is unacceptable. An end to a revenue stream dedicated to addressing this dire situation is clearly not warranted. The DBE cannot wish away the persistent sanitation and other infrastructure backlogs. They exist, they are significant, and they demand urgent, targeted and effective action.
If the Asidi and SAFE programmes are to be phased out, they must be replaced with a programme that recognises that norms and standards deadlines have passed and adequate provisioning has not yet been achieved, and that will allow provisioning to occur as a matter of urgency. This is an elementary component of the DBE’s duty to protect pupils. The deaths of Michael, Lumka, Lister and Siyamthanda were a horror and an outrage. The same thing cannot be allowed to happen to another schoolchild.
* Cooper-Bell is a senior attorney and Kazim is a research consultant at the Equal Education Law Centre
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