The sanitation crisis in the Eastern Cape has forced grade R and 1 learners to relieve themselves in snake-infested bushes. The Eastern Cape was in the spotlight after a school principal forced a child into a pit latrine to remove a cellphone. It is estimated that it would take approximately 55 years to resolve the unsafe sanitation in the province.
Yusuf Claim, the DA’s Shadow MEC for Education during the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) said during the oversight inspection at Lundini Primary School in the OR Tambo District it was discovered it makes use of six pit latrines, three for girls and three for boys. School teachers had to use the same latrines.
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The facilities are said to be used by both learners and teachers, but grade R learners and grade one learners cannot use the seats because they are too large for them. The learners have to resort to relieving themselves in the bushes.
Caim said, “These small vulnerable children are instead forced to relieve themselves outdoors, with the girls making use of a nearby tree and the boys being forced to use an open patch of grass where the SGB chair informed me that they had recently discovered a black mamba.”
He said almost 1 600 schools in the Eastern Cape still no not have appropriate sanitation. Only 33 schools were assisted and provided with sanitation in the 2019/2020 period and 18 other schools were assisted in the following year.
Source: Eyewitness News, The South African, image from
