The government says it is working on a strategy to improve the delivery of much-needed systems
Barry Streek
Minister of Education Kader Asmal has disclosed in Parliament that two-thirds of South African schools (17907 schools) are without adequate sanitation and 11,7% (3188 schools) do not have any sanitation at all. There were 27148 schools in South Africa last year.
Many of the worst schools are in Northern Province, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and the North West. In Northern Province 75,8% did not have adequate sanitation compared to 71,8% in KwaZulu-Natal, 70,3% in the Eastern Cape, 68,3% in Mpumalanga and 64,4% in North West.
Schools in the Northern Cape, Western Cape, Gauteng and the Free State provinces have varying access to some form of sanitation ranging from 37% to 50%.
Mpumalanga has the highest number 26% of its schools are without any sanitation. Many of the schools in the worst-affected provinces use the bucket system or the pit-latrine system.
Asmal said the general norm for adequate sanitation was one toilet for 25 primary pupils and one toilet for 20 secondary pupils.
“In order to compensate for small shortages, which will not have a major impact on sanitation provision, we have used a ratio of one toilet for every 30 learners in all primary and secondary schools. Furthermore, schools with bucket systems have been included in the calculations as schools with inadequate sanitation facilities.”
He said 28,8% of schools 7816 did not have an adequate water supply. In the Eastern Cape 41,1% of schools have water supply shortages compared to 38,3% in Mpumalanga, 36,9% in Northern Province, 32,4% in Free State, 31,8% in KwaZulu-Natal, 10,6% in North West, and Gauteng, Northern Cape and Western Cape with 2%.
Asmal said he recently met Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Ronnie Kasrils to improve the delivery of water and sanitation systems in schools and the two departments are working on a joint strategy, including a monitoring system.
Next month Asmal and Kasrils will table a joint memorandum on the strategy for water and sanitation in schools to the Cabinet.
Asmal said provincial education departments received substantial allocations to address the development and maintenance of school infrastructure, and he expects an acceleration on the water and sanitation programme during the current financial year.