Equal Education media statement: Angie Motshekga, Mathanzima Mweli, Mandla Makupula, and Themba Kojana must be held accountable for the death of 5-year-old Viwe Jali

Her name was Viwe Jali. She was 5-years-old.

Equal Education is distraught that another child has drowned in a pit latrine at school. We are angered at the continued, crass disregard for the interests of learners. We offer our condolences to her family, her friends, and her school community.

The late Viwe, a learner at Luna Primary in Bizana‚ in the Eastern Cape‚ fell into a pit latrine and died on Tuesday.

The sympathy expressed by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga is hollow, disrespectful and insensitive. Equal Education places the blame for this tragedy on Minister Motshekga, on Basic Education Director General Mathanzima Mweli, on Eastern Cape Education MEC Mandla Makupula, and on Eastern Cape Education Department Head Themba Kojana.

The provision of safe schools that support learning is not only fundamental to realising the constitutionally guaranteed rights to education, health, equality and human dignity, but is also a life and death question, as shown by the tragic passing of Viwe, and that of Michael Komape in 2014.

It is becoming increasingly evident that the ruling party has no plan to improve the lives of poor Black people - the government of South Africa forces parents to send children to schools that are unsafe, for learning to take place in an undignified environment. With resources that are available sometimes being unspent or misappropriated, apartheid can no longer be an excuse.

No parent, no matter how poor, should have to bury a five-year-old - a child that lay in faeces.

It is a matter of horrific coincidence that Equal Education was in the Bhisho High Court this week, asking acting Judge Nomawabo Msizi to compel Minister Motshekga to fix unconstitutional loopholes and gaps in the Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure. If the court agrees with us, it will mean that the country’s law on school infrastructure will be tightened, and there will not be any excuse for any failure by the nine provinces to comply with the deadlines which the law sets for providing essential infrastructure at schools.

On 20 January 2014, 5-year-old Michael Komape died after falling into a dilapidated pit latrine at his school in Chebeng Village, Limpopo. Represented by Section27, Michael’s family seeks damages from the State for the trauma, loss of income, expense and grief that they have suffered and continue to endure.

Equal Education (EE) was admitted as a friend of the court (amicus curiae) in the Michael Komape matter. EE made submissions demonstrating the history of our campaign for the adoption of the Norms and Standards, and the knowledge the State had, or ought to have had, of the crisis of inadequate and unsafe school conditions in South Africa. In opposing EE’s admission in the case, the State made the astounding claim (among others) that there were no Constitutional matters at play in the case. The Polokwane High Court dismissed the State’s claims as “without substance”.

Justice for the Komape family, and for Viwe Jali’s family, are necessary steps toward justice for all South African families who are compelled to send their children to unsafe schools.

Below, we name every one of the 61 schools in the Eastern Cape that has no sanitation. And the list below that, every one of the 1,585 schools in the Eastern Cape that have only plain pit latrines as a form of toilet. These lists are according to a response by the Department of Basic Education, to a Parliamentary question in February 2017. They may also be accessed here.

According to the latest National Education Infrastructure Management System (NEIMS) report dated January 2018, available here, there are 37 schools in the Eastern Cape with no toilets at all. There are 1,945 Eastern Cape schools with plain pit latrines, and 2,585 with ventilated pit latrines (referred to as VIP latrines). According to the same report, there are 4,358 schools in South Africa that have only plain pit latrines as a form of toilet. Flush toilets are rare.

To read the Equal Education report on the violation of the Norms law in the Eastern Cape, click here. To read our report on the lack of water, and of decent toilets in Limpopo schools, click here.

Statement issued by Tshepo Motsepe, General Secretary of Equal Education, 16 March 2018