Protesters Demand Mobile Toilets For Schools in South Africa

About 60 members of Equal Education and parents of learners marched to the Limpopo Department of Basic Education in Polokwane to demand the immediate provision of mobile toilets at schools which still have pit latrines.

According to the 2021 National Education Infrastructure Management System report, Equal education said 5,167 of the country’s 23,275 public schools still use plain pit toilets.

The group said that plain pit toilets were banned under the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure in 2013 and were to be removed and replaced by 2016.

The Department of Basic Education had missed deadlines in 2016, 2020 and 2023.

In 2017 EE visited 18 schools in Ga-Mashashane and found learners in most of the schools still using plain pit toilets. Again in 2020 and 2023 EE visited the schools and found conditions unchanged in some schools and even worse in others.

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EE Communications Manager, Jay-Dee Cyster said the Limpopo Education Department was slow to meet its moral and legal responsibilities to learners.

Limpopo Department of Basic Education spokesperson, Mike Maringa said the department was preparing to update the courts on its progress, in line with a court directive.

One of the protesters said that their toilets are now a danger to them.

He said the principal recently fixed one of the toilet seats with plastic but students are afraid of using the toilet in such condition.

Francis Mothiba, a member of the school governing body at Seipone Secondary, said the parents have been talking to the department for eight years.

Meanwhile, the Chief Director of Infrastructure in the Limpopo Department of Basic Education, Isaac Malatji has received and signed the memorandum.