Human rights group Section 27 says the Limpopo Education Department may meet its deadline to eradicate pit latrines by the end of March but questions the accuracy of the data being used.
Earlier this month, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube told Parliament that the department had reached a 93% completion rate in eradicating pit latrines based on the 2018 Safe Initiative audit. The initiative was launched to eliminate unsafe toilets in schools.
The department had initially set a deadline of 31 March 2023 but has since extended it multiple times.
Senior Education Attorney at Section 27, Demichelle Petherbridge, expressed concerns about the numbers cited by the minister.
“There is a likelihood that she could make that deadline. We are concerned about the numbers she is using. She herself said that the 93% completion rate is based on a number that was determined in 2018, and these are really outdated numbers. So, at that time it’s possible that they were accurate, but what we have seen from the Limpopo experience, a high court order that said the Limpopo department of education must eradicate pit toilets and come up with a plan and give us a list,” says Petherbridge.
She added that monitoring efforts since a 2021 High Court order have revealed inconsistencies in the department’s reporting.
“These audit processes are not being done properly. To give you an example, when we started with this, they told us that there were around 280 schools that were operating with pit toilets only. Three years later, we now have 564,” she says.
Deadline looms over Limpopo to eliminate school pit toilets:
