SOWETAN SAYS | Time to eradicate pit toilets across society

In November, basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube committed to closing all pit toilets in our schools and ensuring that every pupil and teacher has access to safe, dignified sanitation facilities.

The deadline she set for this was March 31 and to her credit, efforts were made to ensure that all public schools that still had pit toilets demolished them and were replaced with mobile toilets temporarily. This was a noble pledge by the minister, which we all supported after years of promises to eradicate pit toilets in schools that had come to naught.

Pit toilets in schools symbolise failure and betrayal of the struggle for dignity of services for many of our communities that were denied these fundamental human rights for many years.

Unbeknown to the minister, perhaps, and many of us, the monster of indignity surprisingly still lurks in dark corners of our society. This week, we reported on makeshift pit toilets that we found in early childhood development (ECD) centres serving rural communities in Limpopo. While the structures appear to be secured with cement and bricks, they are undeniably unhygienic, shameful and dangerous for children in preschool.

Granted, the preschools are privately owned, but the government carries the responsibility to ensure every child learns in a conducive and dignified environment, given that education is a constitutional right.

The government's responsibility in the case of the rural preschools we visited is further highlighted by conditional funding to creche owners as part of our country’s developmental goals.

In addition, early childhood development is a priority of the government, with a recent summit resolving to extend access to ECD to every child. This is because this sector is critical and serves as a cornerstone of our education in the country.

The deaths of Michael Komape and Lumka Mkethwa in pit toilets several years ago should serve as a reminder of the danger we are flirting with when there is inadequate infrastructure in education.

As a country, we can ill-afford having more children dying from the same inhumane conditions or complacency in the face of these humiliating facilities that also pose a risk to the wellbeing of children. The call for safe sanitation, even at ECD centres, has become more urgent as it is also a human need.

Indifference to the existence of these degrading conditions simply because they are from privately run schools would be a shame for our government. We owe it to the children to improve sanitation by eliminating pit toilets everywhere in our education.

SowetanLIVE