Department defends its proposal to scrap deadlines to fix schools
The basic education department has defended its plan to scrap the deadlines for fixing school infrastructure set out in regulations to the Schools Act, saying it is doing so to align its plans with the National Development Plan (NDP).
This month basic education minister Angie Motshekga flighted proposed changes to the 2013 regulations for norms and standards for public school infrastructure, giving interested parties until July 10 to comment.
The 2013 regulations stem from a legal campaign waged by Equal Education to compel the government to commit to fixing school infrastructure, and include a series of hard deadlines.
Pit latrines were immediately banned, all school buildings made from inappropriate materials such as asbestos were to be replaced by 2016, and by 2020 all schools had to have water, electricity and safe sanitation.
Longer deadlines, extending to 2030, were set for ensuring all schools had laboratories, libraries and sports facilities.
“We want to align the infrastructure targets to all other targets in the sector,” said basic education department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga. “The intention is to address the issues … by the timelines as reflected in the NDP,” he said.
Equal Education panned the proposal to scrap the deadlines, saying it would take away a key mechanism for holding the government to account for its legal duty to ensure every pupil attends a school with appropriate infrastructure.
While the NDP sets government goals for 2030, it is not a legally binding document.
“It is not up to the department to, at will, revise timelines that affect the rights and entitlements of learners. That would be a regressive step,” it said.
“Instead of being entitled to water, electricity, decent toilets and enough classrooms now, as per the existing norms and standards, the [department] wants to say that learners are only entitled to this at some indefinite time in the future.
“That is completely unacceptable, and cannot be justified in the interest of aligning undefined indicators and timelines in the sector.”
There has been some progress in infrastructure delivery but backlogs persist, said Equal Education, citing the department’s 2021 National Education Infrastructure Management System report.
At that stage there were 2,130 schools with pit toilets as their only form of sanitation, 5,836 schools had an unreliable water supply and 17,832 — almost 70% — of schools were without a library.
Issues were particularly severe in rural provinces such as Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-natal, it said.
“Many learners from these provinces face appalling … conditions such as overcrowded classrooms [and] dilapidated facilities and rely on pit toilets.
“This is a result of the failure of the department of basic education to act urgently,” it said.
It said the government’s budget allocation for school infrastructure over the medium term is insufficient and does not reflect the commitment needed to overcome the poor infrastructure in many schools.
“However, it is not just an issue of budget allocation alone. A lack of political will, mismanagement of funds, corruption and underspending linked to a lack of capacity further compound the department of basic education’s poor response to this issue.
“While the budget in many ways is out of its control, properly spending the money they do have is essential to fixing this issue,” it said.
Basil Manuel of the National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA said scrapping the deadlines for fixing school infrastructure would let provincial education departments off the hook.
The NDP places no legal obligation on provincial education departments to deal with school infrastructure backlogs, he said.
“People will simply do what they think is the minimum requirement.
“We will be giving them a get out of jail free card,” he said.