The unpleasant sight of unflushing, dilapidated, dirty and unsafe toilets with broken doors are a daily reality for learners at the Rivubye High School in rural Limpopo.
“Some toilets have no doors and are constantly waterlogged with dirty water,” said DA MPL Katlego Suzan Phala after a recent oversight visit to Rivubye High School.
Phala said the school has four dilapidated toilet blocks with no doors and in some instances learners have to shield each other when they use the toilets.
The school is still heavily dependent on pit toilets and some of the toilets have damaged roofs that leak during the rainy season and the lack of basin for hand washing poses a health risk to learners.
The DA has since lodged a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) with regard to the situation at Rivubye High School.
“The process from here on is that once the complaint is lodged it will be assessed and if acceptable it will be investigated and the complainant will get updated on the progress from time to time,” said Victor Mavhidula, provincial manager of the SAHRC. –
Limpopo Department of Education spokesperson Mike Maringa said they are in the process to replace and procure toilets for the school.
“The school in question is the only one that was omitted out on the list of schools that are supposed to receive new toilets to replace their old pits toilets. We are not saying that the school was left out on purpose when other schools were being counted but it was missed unintentionally when the counting and recording of schools that have pit toilets were to be eradicated in the province,” Maringa said.
Maringa said Rivubye High School will receive newly built toilets by the end of the financial year as part of its plans.
“The infrastructure unit is underway for the state of facilities at the school to remedy the situation of unsafe toilets at the school since we should have been able to have assisted the school when it was missed during the consolidated list, but with that said it would also be appreciated to acknowledge the newly built toilets at other schools,” said Maringa.
The issue of unsafe and unhygienic dilapidated pit toilets in schools came into the spotlight in 2014 when a five year old learner Michael Komape fell into a school pit toilet at a rural school in Chebeng village, Limpopo. Following his death the the NGO Section 27 which advocates for pit toilets to be eradicated for safe and decent sanitation facilities at schools took the matter the court.
The group representing the Komape family succeeded in getting the Polokwane High Court to rule that the national Department of Basic Education and Limpopo Department of Education (LDoE) should develop a plan to urgently eliminate pit toilets and install safe and dignified sanitation facilities at schools in Limpopo.
Furthermore the LDoE and Department of Basic Education were ordered to provide the court with updated information every six months on schools using pit toilets and plans to replace them.
According to recent data the LDoE stated that 286 Priority 1 schools would be provided with mobile toilets for 12 months while construction of replacement toilets got underway. The cost of the mobile toilets was R4,500 per toilet per month and 5,516 toilets were to be provided over the 2022/23 financial year, amounting to R298-million.
Recent data reveals that in 2022 a total of 276 primary schools and 86 high schools were in need of mobile toilets at the beginning of 2022. Now 123 primary schools and 39 schools have received their temporary mobile toilets.
Section27 named a system to track the government’s work the Michael Komape Progress Monitor.
From the Michael Komape Progress Monitor, the December 2021 data indicated that 116, 299 learners from 363 schools relied exclusively on pit toilets. In June 2022 the data showed slight progress where 72,168 learners in 230 from 363 schools were still relying on pit toilets.
A recent report by the department in January this year revealed that over 65,940 learners from 210 schools rely exclusively on pit toilets. The data indicated that there are 153 schools labeled as priority1 schools with pit toilets only where work is reported to be complete, or where toilets are considered adequate.
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