Commission set to investigate school sanitation problem

THE Human Rights Commission (HRC) is to investigate schools in the Eastern Cape after it was found that 1 049 schools do not have proper sanitation facilities.

Recently DA shadow MEC for education Edmund van Vuuren posed a parliamentary question to education MEC Mandla Makupula last week after it emerged that one in five schools in the province has inadequate sanitation facilities or no toilets at all.

Van Vuuren described the situation as a human rights violation and wrote to the HRC asking for a province-wide investigation into the matter.

“This is a human rights violation on an unprecedented scale – an estimated 260 000 Eastern Cape children attend a school each day without proper sanitation facilities,” van Vuuren said.

“Given the billions of rands made available to fund Eastern Cape education every year, it is unacceptable that almost one in five of the 5 664 public schools doesn’t have the most basic facilities.

“In fact the education department had all the time and money in the world to eradicate these backlogs but instead wastes millions every year on maladministration, corruption and unfunded mandates.

“This is a shocking neglect which undermines the dignity of hundreds of thousands of children attending public schools in the Eastern Cape every day.”

Tuwa Primary School in Bell Village near Peddie is one such school without adequate sanitation facilities.

According to principal Mfundo Mali, the school’s 115 pupils and staff are forced to make do with only six pit latrines, some of which are not in a good condition.

“We’ve never had flushing toilets at the school since it was built.

“This really affects us negatively because even the six pit toilets we have are not in a good condition and some of them should not even be in use,” Mali said.

Department of education spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said it was unfortunate that the DA had opted to use information provided to the portfolio committee in such a negative manner, but added that an assessment into the situation was on the cards.

Pulumani cited budget shortfalls as a reason for the situation.

“We will do a comprehensive assessment of our infrastructure needs so that we know the resources required to deal with these backlogs,” he said.

“This will also assist us so that we know which areas are in dire need of those resources so that we know where to direct our meagre resources in order to best deal with this.” —