It’s unacceptable that, nearly 50 years later, pit toilets still exist at schools

On June 20 1978, this newspaper ran an article with the headline “Pupils fear school’s pit latrine”.

In that article, concerns were raised about the situation at Albatros Primary School in St Albans where pupils, afraid of falling into pit latrines, refused to use them.

The principal at the time, Christo Swart, wrote to the Port Elizabeth School Board after a school board meeting, saying the pit latrines were “unhygienic and unsuitable for the children”.

Nearly 50 years later and for many schools across the country, pit toilets remain a reality — and a death trap; over the years, we have read about countless children dying after falling into these pit toilets.

An article in 1978 indicates that pit latrines at schools have been a problem for decades (The Herald )

Speaking during an oversight visit to Dimbaza Primary School in Buffalo City, where newly built toilets were officially handed over earlier this week, basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube said more than 840 schools in the Eastern Cape still relied on pit toilets.

She said about R3.61bn would be required to replace them with safe sanitation facilities.

“Across South Africa, the 3,372 schools identified in the 2018 audit have now been provided with safe and appropriate sanitation facilities,” Gwarube said.

“More than three-million learners now attend schools where dangerous pit toilets have been replaced with safer, more dignified facilities.”

While we welcome the new toilets at Dimbaza, and interventions at other schools around the country, it cannot be that five decades since that 1978 article, we still have 847 schools across the Eastern Cape that still require pit toilets to be replaced with safe sanitation infrastructure.

Safe toilets are not a luxury to be delivered when finances improve. They are as fundamental to education as classrooms, teachers and textbooks.

Pit toilets are possibly SA education’s biggest embarrassment and an indictment not only of the schooling system, but also the dignity of those forced to use them.

All our children deserve better.

They deserve schools where learning is their only focus, not whether they will survive toilet breaks.