EDWIN NAIDU

ALMOST three decades after democracy, South Africa prepares to celebrate Human Rights Day on 21 March. But the death of another child, who allegedly fell in a pit latrine in the Eastern Cape last week, has highlighted the failure of the government to provide adequate sanitation for learners.

The four-year-old child was found dead in the pit latrine toilet in a primary school in Glen Grey on Tuesday.

The Eastern Cape Education department claimed in a media report that the child had used a toilet not meant for her age group.

While it raises questions over the supervision of minors at schools, the tragedy brought into sharp focus the actions of the Department of Basic Education in eradicating pit latrine toilets at schools.

In 2013, legislation was passed compelling government departments to ensure that by November 2016, all schools have access to water, sanitation and electricity; all pit latrines were replaced with safe and adequate sanitation; and schools built from mud and asbestos were replaced.

But two separate studies published by Amnesty International – the first released in 2020 and the second in 2021 – reveal that the government has failed to meet these targets. Reports of children falling into pit latrines with fatal consequences have been published nationwide since the publication of these reports.

The 2021 report, entitled Broken and Unequal The State of Education in South Africa, describes the country’s education system as one of the most unequal school systems in the world.

However, the death of another learner in a pit latrine brings to the fore the issue of infrastructure provision and the failure of the Department of Basic Education to tackle this challenge for the past decade.

In 2018, according to government statistics, the number of schools with pit latrines was 3 898, broken down as follows: 1 598 in the Eastern Cape, 156 in the Free State, 1365 in KwaZulu-Natal, 507 in Limpopo, 127 in Mpumalanga, 145 in the North West with zero in Gauteng, Northern Cape and Western Cape.

According to the statistics for 2018, out of 23,471 public schools, 19% had illegal pit latrines for sanitation, with another 37 schools had no sanitation facilities at all; 86% had no laboratory, 77% had no library, 72% had no internet access, and 42% had no sports facilities. Two hundred thirty-nine schools lacked any electricity.

The Amnesty International Report says these shortcomings breach the government’s international human rights obligations and its Minimum Norms and Standards for educational facilities.

As the government continues to miss its upgrading targets, Amnesty International’s research in Gauteng and Eastern Cape found numerous examples of schools with poor infrastructure and lacking basic facilities.

These issues impact the enjoyment of the right to education and pupils’ other rights, such as water, sanitation, privacy and dignity, as highlighted by their testimonies.

One of the critical infrastructure issues is poor sanitation which impacts a range of rights, including Education, water and sanitation, health, privacy and dignity. Amnesty International researchers found numerous examples of poorly maintained, broken or unsanitary toilets, including pit latrines.

Even though a critical requirement of the 2013 Minimum Norms and Standards is, that plain pit latrines are eradicated.

By the beginning of 2019, nearly 4,000 schools were still using pit latrines, 117 of which were single pits covered with a wooden or concrete slab with a drop hole with a structure around it for shelter and privacy. These largely continue in schools serving poorer black communities in rural areas, particularly in the Eastern Cape and KZN.

Despite some limited improvements, the infrastructure condition in many schools still needs to improve, and delays in infrastructure improvements remain a significant obstacle to realising the right to education for millions of learners.

Beyond the survey data, issues of particular concern that Amnesty International witnessed or was told about during field research included: dangerous sanitation infrastructure, continued use of pit toilets, lack of sufficient toilets for the number of pupils in line with the learner-to-toilet ratio of the Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure of 1:30.

Additionally, the lack of adequate sanitation can cause embarrassment and shame among pupils impacting their rights to privacy and dignity: many toilet cubicles without locks, and 9% of the pit latrines did not have pit covers, allowing pests to infiltrate and spread contamination, only 18% of the pupils consulted thought the toilets were sufficiently private; and only 35% of schools had basins for handwashing, and only half of the basins were functioning.

Most seriously, pit latrines have caused the death of learners. Following two recent tragic cases of Michael Komape and Lumka Mketwa, who fell into and drowned in dilapidated school pit toilets President Ramaphosa in March 2018, ordered the Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga to conduct a full audit of school facilities with unsafe structures, including sanitation within one month and to present a plan within three months to rectify the challenges as an interim emergency measure before rolling out proper infrastructure.

In December 2019, the Appeals Court awarded Michael Komape’s family R1 million in damages to be paid by the DBE for emotional shock.

In another case before the Limpopo High Court in Polokwane, the Limpopo Education Department indicated that, as of July 2018, 1,658 schools had sanitation needs, with 1,489 of them having pit toilets on site, comprising 17,144 seats. The Limpopo Education Department added that, with its current budget, it would take an estimated 14 years to replace all pit toilets in the province’s public schools.

The government’s evidence shows that it continues to fail to meet the 2013 targets, with thousands of schools still impacted. According to the DBE’s own National Education Infrastructure Management System (NEIMS) report published in January 2018, there were still 37 schools lacking any sanitation facilities.

Despite the 2013 Minimum Norms and Standards requiring that plain pit latrines are eradicated, they continue to be widespread. Indeed, the NEIMS January 2018 report stated that up to 8,702 out of a total of 23,471 (37%), schools were still using them.

In April 2018, the DBE itself confirmed that there were 3,532 pit toilets in schools across the country, and about R7.8 billion (US$ 542 million) was needed to address the sanitation backlog.252

A subsequent audit put the figure at 3,898 for schools where pit toilets were the only form of sanitation and another 3,040 where they remained alongside other forms of sanitation.

In another interview, according to the Amnesty International report, the DBE Minister stated: “We have to re-prioritize the infrastructure budget of R7 billion (US$ 487 million) per annum to deal with sanitation problems. For instance, Limpopo province alone needs about R3 billion (US$ 209 million) to deal with sanitation problems. However, our infrastructure budget has been cut by R3.5 billion (US$ 243 million).”

Asked to comment on the pit latrine death of the pupil in the Eastern Cape, DBE spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said Minister Motshekga would be hosting a media conference on Tuesday to address a range of issues around school infrastructure.

INSIDE EDUCATION

EDWIN NAIDU

SOUTH Africa’s R16.5 billion student debt crisis will continue to escalate with the renewed threat of shutdowns and violence at tertiary institutions, warn senior education experts Enver Motala and Salim Vally.

Both academics argue that the recent protests at the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town, the University of KwaZulu Natal and the Durban University of Technology, among other tertiary institutions, have arisen from various issues.

These include registration fees, the restrictive admission policies affected by student debt, accommodation and housing, food and hunger, transport and other necessities in a learning environment.

“Even more fundamentally, they concern the much-vaunted claims about the ‘transformation’ of universities and the relationship between the university and society. Once again, we see the possibility of more shutdowns and violence signalled using ‘security’ guards and pepper spray, interdicts and condemnations and the inevitable resistance that this will bring from students,” said Motala and Vally.

Motala is a research associate of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg, and Vally is a professor at UJ’s Education Faculty.

Motala and Vally said that the current round of protests was entirely predictable, a view they shared during the 2015 #feesmustfall uprising by students in protest against the increase in student fees when they warned that the promise of “free education” would come back to haunt the government.

“That’s because leaders fail to understand what’s at stake in the demands for genuinely free quality education for all. University administrators expected the government student Funding Agency – the National Students Financial Aid Scheme – to solve the affordability problem. But the scheme, which the organisation monitoring tax abuse has noted, has spent more than R166-million on office rental space despite cutting back on subsidies for student accommodation,” they said.

According to Motala and Vally, NSFAS will not resolve the fundamental question students continue to place before the nation.

“And no amount of goodwill and the charitable work of individuals, philanthropies, SRCs and agencies trying to fill the gap will resolve it sustainably either. At the end of 2021, student debt had increased to R16.5-billion and will continue to spiral upwards at the present rate.”

Instead, Motala and Vally suggest that the effect of the proposed profit-generating loan scheme will deepen the pockets of billionaires (and the institutions they control) and increase the indebtedness of the poor and marginalised.

“All this confirms again that those in power have learnt very little from the past and will continue to cling to the capricious hope that somehow the problem will go away. Yet the underlying reasons for the student’s struggles are no less than a continuation of the same fundamental causes provoking the same consequences. They are a combination of the austerity policies of the government, to which university executives have acquiesced, the ill-fated logic of university corporatisation and the absence of any sense of democratic accountability to the wider public of the university, especially, but not only to the communities of the most marginalised in our society.”

Motala and Vally warned against the grudging and opportunistic application of the fee ‘exemption’ applying to some students only on the false assumption that it would be regressive to apply ‘free education’ universally.

“We set out the arguments why this was bound to fail.”

“Now even policy-makers proclaim that they are concerned about the fate of the ‘missing middle’, that cohort of students are not being supported by the student aid – exactly what we had warned would be an inevitable consequence of government’s prevarications. For the great majority of students, the present situation engenders numerous insecurities and traumas, a consequence of not knowing what will happen next, the often-thwarted attempt to complete university studies to get a job to repay debt, including a host of other socio-psychological effects on students, and indeed on their teachers and supervisors.”

Motala and Vally said that the failure to appreciate the implications of ignoring the compelling case for free quality education for all as set out in our and other submissions to the Heher Commission would only deepen the subjugation and marginalisation of those communities most vulnerable to the laws of the market privileging (once again) only the socio-political elite while entrenching unequal relations between rich and poor.

“Austerity is possibly the most powerful instrument in the hands of such elites who are turning societies into rich picking grounds for the appropriation (and expropriation) of the public good through the cruel and unthinking logic of the power of global elites including financial institutions who benefit from the interest paid on student loans.”

They warn that university leaders, who ought to have seen these consequences from at least the protests of 2015, appear to be blinded by their roles as managers of the process of knowledge corporatisation.

“Universities should not renege on their responsibility to submit to the validating criteria of the public good – that is, the right of citizens in a democratic society to demand that those in power are open to democratic public accountability. For universities, given their much-proclaimed role in the defence of intellectual freedom, it demands a critical orientation to the power of fiat. It requires their commitment to public knowledge production and education untrammelled by the disfigurement of the corporate injunction. It demands the acceptance and promotion of a wider,
more enduring and conscientious commitment to public accountability.”

On Thursday, days after tension flared on campus, the University of the Witwatersrand said in a statement that the Vice-Chancellor and Principal and members of management met with the current members of the Students’ Representative Council. Both parties agreed to de-escalate the situation and continue with engagements to resolve matters.

“We will continue with talks as we try to find a way forward.”

INSIDE EDUCATION

THE University of Cape Town (UCT) Council has announced the appointment of Emeritus Professor Daya Reddy as interim Vice-Chancellor. 

This decision was made at a special Council meeting on 6 March 2023 following consultation with Senate on 2 March, and after seeking the advice of the Institutional Forum on 3 March.

UCT Chair of Council Babalwa Ngonyama said: “Professor Reddy will officially assume duty from Tuesday, 14 March 2023. He will hold this position until a new Vice-Chancellor is appointed.”

Professor Reddy has spent almost his entire academic career at UCT. At his retirement in 2020 he held the South African Research Chair in Computational Mechanics. He enjoys considerable recognition nationally and internationally as a researcher and has received multiple awards in recognition of his scholarly work. He is the author or co-author of over 200 publications and has supervised over 70 doctoral and master’s students to graduation. 

Professor Reddy has served in various management and leadership positions at UCT: as a head of department, as dean of the Faculty of Science for seven years, and from 1999 to 2021 as director of the Centre for Research in Computational and Applied Mechanics.

He served on three occasions as an acting deputy vice-chancellor, over these periods covering collectively a wide range of portfolios. He also served three terms on Council as a member elected by the Senate. Over and above his duties at UCT, he also has extensive governance and leadership experience nationally and internationally.

“We thank Professor Reddy for availing himself for this role and we warmly welcome him back to UCT. I am sure we will all offer him our support during his interim tenure,” concluded Ngonyama.

INSIDE EDUCATION