The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is on a mission to eradicate pit toilets at schools across South Africa for the safety of learners.
This comes after the deaths of some learners in school pit latrines in the past.
In 2014, 5-year-old Michael Komape fell into a pit toilet at Mahlodumela Primary School in Limpopo and died.
A similar incident happened in 2018, in which Lumka Mketwa, a 5-year-old learner at Luna Primary School in the Eastern Cape, fell into a pit toilet and died.
Again in the Eastern Cape, in 2017, Siyamthanda Mtunu died after the walls of a toilet collapsed on him at Dalasile Primary School.
In a written parliamentary question to Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga, the EFF’s Babalwa Mathulelwa asked about the dates by which pit toilets would be completely eradicated at all schools in the Eastern Cape. This because a large majority of schools in Matatiele were still using them.
Motshekga said that to date, the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (Asidi) and Sanitation Appropriate for Education (Safe) programmes have so far eradicated pit toilets at 3 376 schools (1 045 Asidi and 2 331 Safe).
“Asidi and Safe programmes plan to eradicate basic pit toilets at an additional 912 schools (8 Asidi and 904 Safe) in the current (2022/23) and beginning of next (2023/24) financial years,” she said.
The primary objectives of both programmes is to eradicate the basic safety norms backlog in schools without water, sanitation and electricity and to replace those schools constructed from inappropriate material (mud and asbestos) to contribute towards levels of optimum learning and teaching.
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