More than 18 600 schools still do not have science laboratories. Picture: Armand Hough/Independent Newspapers
Civil society organisations have expressed concern about the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) amended school infrastructure regulations, criticising them as regressive steps that indicate a departure from ensuring educational equality, particularly for learners in rural and low-income communities.
SECTION27, the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC), the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and Equal Education (EE) said the amended regulations relating to Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure, published in the Government Gazette on 27 June 2024, diluted critical obligations previously placed on the DBE and provincial education departments to make urgent and adequate provision for infrastructure at public schools.
The matter is expected to be addressed in Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube’s budget vote next week.
“These School Infrastructure Regulations, first published in 2013 after a hard-won victory secured by EE’s high school learner members, were specifically designed to provide a set of minimum standards for infrastructure that all public schools were required to adhere to in order to function safely and properly,” the organisations said in a statement.
The DBE’s initial 2013 School Infrastructure Regulations provided deadlines - November 2016, 2020, 2023 and 2030 - indicating when public schools had to be provided with basic infrastructure such as water, electricity, classrooms, toilets, and fencing.
It also required that all schools made of inappropriate materials like mud, asbestos, metal or wood be fixed by November 2016.
The organisations said the department published revised school infrastructure regulations on May 28, 2024, which was withdrawn, and again published revised regulations on June 27, 2024.
“Tragically, all deadlines by when the School Infrastructure Regulations must be met have now been removed.
As seen in the first set of revisions, (provincial departments) are merely obliged to ensure that school infrastructure projects are included in their plans within one year, that plans are published 90 days after the beginning of the financial year, and that ‘end of year evaluation reports’ are published 60 days after the end of the financial year. The only exception remains that of schools with insufficient classrooms whose needs must be addressed and reviewed annually.”
According to the DBE’s most recent Education Facility Management data, dated August 2023, 728 schools still only use plain pit toilets, over 16 700 schools do not have libraries, and more than 18 600 schools still do not have science laboratories.
Earlier this year, the South African Human Rights Commission launched an investigation into the death of a three-year-old toddler who died after falling into a pit toilet in Mdantsane in April. Last year, also in the Eastern Cape, a four-year-old girl’s body was found inside a pit latrine at her school.
DBE spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, said these matters will be addressed in Gwarube’s budget vote next week.
“At the moment she has convened a series of meetings to better understand the work of the Department before committing herself in public on particular matters. It is therefore premature for her to comment.”
Cape Times