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Schools still lack water, toilets and power

More than 4000 schools across the country still use pit latrines and just over 1000 have inappropriate structures.

This was revealed by Minister Angie Motshekga last month in a parliamentary reply to the DA.

Last year in November, the Department of Basic Education published reports by provincial departments about their school infrastructure plans.

Motshekga published the norms and standards for school infrastructure in 2013 . Provinces committed to a three-year target from the date of the gazette in providing basic services at schools such as water, electricity and sanitation.

According to Motshekga's reply, only two provinces still had schools without toilets, being Eastern Cape at 61 and Free State at five. They were also the only ones that still had schools without water, 58 in Eastern Cape and two in Free State.

Gauteng, Limpopo, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga had no schools without electricity.

In its report, KwaZulu-Natal said as of 2014 it had 628 schools that did not have electricity but the number had gone down to 343.

Eastern Cape had 187 schools without electricity, there are 25 in Free State and 13 and 3 in Mpumalanga and North West respectively.

Pupils at 1586 schools in Eastern Cape still used pit latrines, followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 1379 and Limpopo at 932. Northern Cape only has 10 schools that use pit latrines, Free State has 196, Mpumalanga 392 and North West 130.

Eastern Cape also has the largest number of schools, at 801, which are using inappropriate structures followed by Western Cape at 130.

The only provinces that reported not having inappropriate structures are Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, while North West only has six schools. Gauteng has 22, Northern Cape 31, Free State 18 and Northern Cape 31.

Basic education department spokesman Elijah Mhlanga said the challenge with some provinces not reaching their target was that they did not have money to deliver.

"So. they had to re-prioritise and that takes its time and you also need to get permission [from Treasury] and that's not something you can do in a month and that's why most of them missed deadlines. But we believe that there has been enough time . for them to have restructured their priorities and make sure that they provide for school infrastructure."

He said it was no secret that provinces such as the Eastern Cape and Limpopo were struggling.

"Eastern Cape is struggling and it's only now that they are beginning to do much better because the guys there are doing the best that they can . but the backlog is there.

"In Limpopo, the problems are exacerbated by weather patterns because that destroys a lot of schools. . the province already had so many schools which had not been fixed after being damaged by rains or storms. So they were already in a deficit and when the norms came demanding that they provide these things their problems were doubled," he said.

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