School infrastructure rules to be challenged

Equal Education will ask the High Court in Bisho on Wednesday to compel Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to fix flaws in her department’s rules for school infrastructure, which it says have let the government shirk its duties.

After a sustained campaign by Equal Education, the minister published legally binding norms and standards for school infrastructure in November 2013, which compelled the education department to ensure schools were safe and dignified places in which to learn.

But Equal Education says the obligations, detailed in regulations to the South African Schools Act, did not go far enough because they allowed the education department to break the deadlines set out in the regulations. “The wording of the norms and standards allows the education department a ‘get out of jail free card’,” said Equal Education Law Centre deputy director Daniel Linde.

Regulation 4(5)(a) says the department is only responsible for fixing schools to the extent that other parts of the state, such as Eskom, must co-operate and make resources available.

This “escape clause” made the various deadlines set out in the 2013 regulations aspirations rather than firm commitments, said Linde.

While it did make some progress, the education department missed the first deadline contained in the regulations, which said that by November 29 2016 there should be no more schools built from inappropriate materials — such as mud or asbestos — and that all schools should have water, sanitation and electricity.

In June 2016, there were still 171 schools with no water and 569 without electricity, while almost 5,000 schools still used pit latrines, according to the department’s most recent National Education Infrastructure Management System report, published on its website.

Equal Education is seeking a court order declaring that regulation 4(5)(a) is inconsistent with the Constitution.