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IN February 2020, Amnesty International said schools in South Africa were characterised by crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms and relatively poor educational outcomes.
Last week, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) said it will be intensifying its delivery and monitoring of construction projects to deliver safe and appropriate school infrastructure. This will form part of the departments’ Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) Initiative.
The primary objective of the SAFE Initiative is to replace basic pit toilets with appropriate sanitation under the Norms and Standards for school infrastructure.
Currently, 2 814 schools are part of the SAFE programme. The DBE said that the upgrading of sanitation has been completed at 1 564 schools as of 2 March 2022.
At the inception of the project, a total of 3 898 schools were identified at the time as having pit toilets. The DBE said that some schools were addressed under other programs. The rest of the schools are scheduled for completion by the end of 2022/2023.
The DBE said that it is currently engaging with provinces to establish whether there are additional schools that are dependent on pit toilets.
They added, “Early indications are that there are some additional schools in Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo”.
The department also provided an update on the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) programme which was introduced to tackle infrastructure backlogs.
The DBE said, “For the replacement of mud schools and those built of inappropriate structures, the current scope of work on the ASIDI programme includes 330 schools that need to be replaced. Of these, 294 have already progressed to practical completion. The remaining 36 new schools are scheduled for replacement before the end of 2022/23 financial year”.
Amnesty International says that crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms and relatively poor educational outcomes perpetuates inequality and will impact children from disadvantaged backgrounds more.
Shenilla Mohamed, Executive Director of Amnesty International South Africa said that for South Africa to comply with both its own constitutional and international human rights obligations concerning education, major change is needed urgently.
– The Skills Portal