A total of 1049 schools in the
Eastern Cape do not have proper toilet facilities, according to Education MEC
Mandla Makhupula’s reply to a DA parliamentary question in the provincial
legislature.
This is a human rights
violation on an unprecedented scale, with an estimated 260 000 Eastern Cape
children attending a school each day without proper sanitation facilities.
The DA wrote to the Human
Rights Commission (HRC) this morning calling for a province-wide investigation
into sanitation at schools.
Given the billions of rands
made available to fund Eastern Cape education every year, it is unacceptable
that almost 1 in 5 of the 5664 public schools don’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 shocking neglect from the
Education Department undermines the dignity of hundreds of thousands of
children attending public schools in the Eastern Cape everyday.
According to the reply, the
Department claims that 173 schools “will receive sanitation this financial
year”, with a further 913 to be serviced by the end of 2015.
These are promises we have all
heard before from the Education Department, but it has never resulted in the
action our learners need.
What we need now is a programme
of action from the HRC to establish why in almost 20 years of governance 1049
schools still do not have toilets.
Only sustained public pressure
on the Education Department will force them to do something about the impact
this rights violation has on our children’s ability to study and learn.
Every child should be able to
go to a public school with dignity and get a quality education. We call on the
HRC to act on our request without delay.
