It is deeply frustrating and disheartening that pit toilets remain a harsh lived reality for many learners in Limpopo schools, write Masechaba Ntsane and Kimberley Khumalo.
As we approach Limpopo’s premier opening address, the Limpopo provincial government must re-prioritise basic education beyond the matric pass rate, looking deeper into the material conditions that pupils must contend with and overcome to reach the finish line.
It has been almost seven years since the Polokwane High Court first ordered the Limpopo Department of Education to devise a plan to fix school water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities in Limpopo schools. It is deeply frustrating and disheartening that pit toilets remain a harsh lived reality for many learners in Limpopo schools.
Additionally, Equal Educations’ recent visits to eight schools in Ga-Mashashane village in Limpopo revealed that some schools in the province that have since received sanitation facilities that are appropriate as per the Regulations Relating to the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure (the school infrastructure law) are raising concerns about the reliability, maintenance and suitability of these facilities.
Slow progress
The slow progress coupled with the half-hearted approach in eradicating the school WASH infrastructure backlog is particularly concerning as the revised version of the school infrastructure law no longer includes the important timelines used to hold the department accountable and does not provide substantive changes to strengthen the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) oversight responsibilities in its implementation.
Over the years, Equal Education has highlighted numerous instances where the president, various premiers of the Limpopo province, the DBE and provincial education department set deadlines to eradicate pit toilets and supply schools with adequate and clean water.
However, the government, particularly the Limpopo education department, has managed to miss every one of these deadlines. Recently, on April 30, the department yet again failed to meet its own deadline to provide priority 1 schools – schools that rely solely on plain pit toilets – with appropriate sanitation as part of its court-ordered infrastructure delivery plan.
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Despite the government’s failure to meet the deadlines set out in the school infrastructure law, the timelines established by these norms have nonetheless played a crucial role. They have been instrumental in enabling Equalisers (Equal Education school-going members), parents, caregivers, civil society, and other interested parties to exert pressure on the government to expedite efforts to restore the dignity of learners.
Deadlines offer a clear standard to monitor progress, ensure accountability and emphasise urgency. This is particularly pertinent in addressing the inadequate WASH infrastructure in many schools in Limpopo, which significantly hinders or outright violates the pupils’ immediately realisable right to education.
Ensuring adequate WASH facilities is not just about meeting infrastructural standards; it is fundamentally about protecting learners’ rights to a safe, healthy, and conducive learning environment. The absence of adequate and appropriate WASH facilities can lead to higher absenteeism rates, lower academic performance, and increased vulnerability to diseases, which disproportionately affect learners in under-resourced areas like Limpopo.
Backlogs
The persistence of infrastructure backlogs in the sector despite the establishment of what seemed to be progressive programmes, like the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI), is worrying and indicative of the magnitude of this issue. We still have pupils who grapple with the reality of unreliable water, no proper toilets, and other vital sanitation amenities such as sanitary bins.
For instance, four of the schools that Equal Education visited highlighted that they only had access to water sometimes. There had been a regression in one of the schools since our last visit – from always having water, to purchasing municipal tanker water. It is deeply concerning that schools are still waiting for basic infrastructure and, in some cases, regressing in terms of access to working and reliable facilities. This brings forth questions about the suitability of the infrastructure and best practices concerning the spending of funds and the implementation of projects.Â
READ |Â Limpopo education department misses deadline to eradicate pit toilets at schools
The Limpopo education department has attributed the lagged progress to funding constraints due to fiscal consolidation. However, this argument does not hold because there is a consistent trend with it underspending its allocated budget. In its 2022/23 annual report, the department underspent more than R105 million of its infrastructure budget and underperformed on most targets, including providing sanitation facilities.
The reason for this was the same as it has been for years: “poor performance by the contractors due to underpricing and poor performance by the implementing agents”. This creates an impression that the provincial department does not need those funds and has no accountability or plan to combat this. This is unacceptable in a context where some schools have no water supply and have had unlawful plain pit toilets since they have been in existence.
The department has also argued that they are constrained by the 60/40 ratio requirement (40% of the budget is allocated to construction and 60% is for maintenance of existing infrastructure). There is an urgent need for concessions to be made on the current budgetary allocations as it cannot be that a majority of the funds go towards maintaining existing infrastructure while there are thousands of learners who continue to contend with the use of undignified and unlawful facilities.
Moreover, it is questionable whether the current budget allocation is reflective of what is happening on the ground. Of the eight schools that we visited in Ga-Mashashane in May this year, only one school indicated that they had maintenance workers on site, and the upgraded facilities at seven schools had never been maintained.
Poor planningÂ
The department’s capacity is lacking, this is reflected in their poor planning, inaccurate reporting, as well as poor implementation and quality of deployment to service the pupils. On top of that, there is a culture of weak implementing agent practice that is characterised by an accountability and transparency crisis. Some implementing agents and contractors have failed to deliver on numerous projects that could have addressed water and sanitation issues in some of the Limpopo schools, however, there are no repercussions such as being blacklisted for their (in)action. This leads one to believe there could be an unethical relationship between the department and the implementing agents.
It is deeply concerning that 30 years into the democratic dispensation, pupils from the most rural parts of Limpopo are still without basic amenities that provide and promote safe and humane WASH.
As we gear up towards the premier’s opening address, we would like to sound the call to the premier of Limpopo, the province’s education MEC, and all other relevant stakeholders to the lived reality of thousands of pupils in Limpopo and urge them to urgently #FixOurSchools by immediately eradicating pit toilets, providing schools with the most context-appropriate facilities, maintaining existing infrastructure, holding implementing agents accountable, and providing oversight for spending habits to restore the dignity of learners.
–Â Â Masechaba Ntsane and Kimberley Khumalo are with Equal Education.
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Masechaba Ntsane and Kimberley Khumalo
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