Deadly substance still lurking in our schools

Qondokuhle Primary School principal Mantombi Nala-Preusker had to place asbestos on the roof and barbed wire over a hole in the school's ceiling after vandals tried to gain access to her office. Picture: Zanele Zulu

Qondokuhle Primary School principal Mantombi Nala-Preusker had to place asbestos on the roof and barbed wire over a hole in the school's ceiling after vandals tried to gain access to her office. Picture: Zanele Zulu

Published Oct 31, 2016

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Thousands of SA pupils and teachers risk exposure daily to the deadly substance asbestos, write Tshepo Motsepe and Daniel Sher.

Cape Town - Thousands of South African pupils and teachers risk exposure daily to the deadly substance asbestos. Asbestos fibres are so dangerous it is illegal for an employer to put any person at risk of exposure to them. Yet many of our country’s children still attend school in buildings that could kill them.

Much of the outcry around South Africa’s school infrastructure crisis has been focused on rural provinces, and rightly so, as these provinces face the worst backlogs.

However, rural provinces do not have the monopoly on inequality. There are schools in all parts of the country which, through poor infrastructure, not only offer obstacles to learning, but also directly threaten the health of pupils and teachers.

There is an important date on the education calendar looming: November 29.

By this time, all schools must be provided with basic services such as water and electricity, and schools made of inappropriate materials must be replaced with new ones. Inappropriate school structures do not mean mud schools in deep rural areas. Schools made of asbestos can still be found in townships and urban centres in even the richest provinces.

They reveal these provinces’ impending failure to fix the worst-off schools by the legal deadline of November 29.

The effect of inhaling asbestos fibres can rear its head up to 20 years later, in the form of asbestosis and lung cancer. Usually this is the inheritance of mineworkers. But thousands of pupils and teachers around the country are forced to go to school in these conditions.

Noordgesig Primary School in Soweto is one such school. It is old: built in 1954, it is one year younger than the Bantu Education Act.

It has 40 classrooms, all of which are made of asbestos. Many of these are dilapidated, meaning asbestos fibres are likely to be released into the air. In the administration block, the ceiling is falling in. Over 1 500 pupils attend.

Under the Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure, this school must be replaced with a new school by November 29, three years after the regulations were first published.

Noordgesig Primary has been scheduled for renovations since 2010.

Earlier this year, R90 million was allocated by the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) to rebuild the school.

But with barely more than a month to go until the November deadline, construction has not started.

In a news report from September 12, GDE spokesman Oupa Bodibe blamed the delays on pressure from the Treasury to cut costs - remarkably, the project was costed at more than the R90m allocated budget. For reference, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has been quoted as saying new schools usually cost between R30m and R50m.

Noordgesig Primary is not the only school in Gauteng like this. By the GDE’s statistics, there are 29 schools made of asbestos in Gauteng. At another school, Randfontein Secondary, the GDE built a brick wall around an asbestos building. But the interior was left exposed.

Of concern is the project list for replacing asbestos schools, released almost a year ago by the GDE, which only includes 20 of these schools. This raises the question of whether the GDE has any plans to rebuild the other nine.

Earlier this month, the Gauteng MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi, admitted in a reply to the provincial legislature the 29 schools would not be replaced before the November 29 deadline. Six of these schools are in the planning phase.

None of the 29 have been rebuilt. Poor planning and financial management, failure to acquire land on which to build, and contractor delays are key reasons for this lack of progress.

The issue is not limited to Gauteng. While there are many schools like this around the country, including in the Northern Cape, asbestos schools shine a light on the broader failure of richer provinces to meet the Norms and Standards deadlines.

While the failures in Gauteng can be attributed to bureaucratic missteps, the Western Cape’s failure is first and foremost one of political will. It has given up its obligation to serve all public schools.

In fact, the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has intentionally excluded 226 public schools from any upgrades because they are situated on private land. Of this number, 21 are inappropriate by law. Fifteen are partially or entirely made of asbestos.

It is not as though the Western Cape government is unaware of the dangers of asbestos. The Cape Argus reported on October 10 that areas of the Western Cape provincial legislature building have been evacuated and isolated to remove asbestos contamination. But the same standards of urgency are seemingly not applied when it comes to farm schools.

Schools on private land aside, the WCED identified 207 schools made entirely of inappropriate materials, 26 of which are made of asbestos. But according to its implementation plan for Norms and Standards, released last year, only 49 will be replaced by the end of the 2015/16 financial year. Another 49 are slated for replacement by 2025, nine years after the binding deadline. The WCED has no plans to replace the other 109 wholly inappropriate schools.

Gauteng and the Western Cape cite migration from other provinces as a pressure on their education budgets and a reason schools are not being built at the rate required. But urbanisation is inevitable, and public policy should account for this social transformation.

Contrary to the statements of public officials, these provinces benefit from migration. The Equitable Share, the complex formula which determines how the Treasury allocates money to provinces, depends a great deal on population size. If more people leave the Eastern Cape for the Western Cape, the Western Cape’s budget will grow while the Eastern Cape’s will shrink.

What’s more, when the Eastern Cape underspent its school infrastructure budget by R530m last financial year, the Treasury diverted R450m of this to the Western Cape and Gauteng.

Lesufi’s response to questions in the Gauteng provincial legislature earlier this month is noteworthy for one further reason.

One question inquired whether Parkdale Primary School was on the list for replacement. Lesufi responded it was not, because it was not entirely built of asbestos.

Under the Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure, only schools made entirely of inappropriate materials must be replaced within three years. But a school which is partially made of asbestos can still threaten the lives of pupils and teachers.

Equal Education (EE) has filed papers to take the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to court over Norms and Standards. EE is asking the court to close loopholes in the Norms which prevent them being used to hold government accountable for fixing schools.

The term “entirely inappropriate” is a key plank of this complaint.

In fact, EE’s founding affidavit takes us back to Noordgesig in Soweto, but this time it is Noordgesig Secondary, not the primary school mentioned earlier.

Isaac Ramrock, a governing body member at the school, said: “Some of the asbestos classrooms have started to crumble and break, exposing the asbestos. The asbestos classrooms are small and have very bad ventilation. The air is heavy. A few of our learners have asthma.

“The ceilings of many of the classrooms have started to tear and collapse. Two years ago, a ceiling board fell and hit a learner and teacher during a lesson.”

However, unlike Noordgesig Primary, 24 of the 36 classrooms are made of asbestos.

This school is not on the list for replacement. If the law is allowed to stand, Noordgesig Secondary will have no claim on government come November 29.

The upcoming court case questions flaws in the regulations themselves.

But after November 29, schools will be able to take the government to court on the grounds they have not yet been fixed. The DBE must urgently address the reasons why implementation has happened so poorly or it could find itself in court for a long time to come.

* Tshepo Motsepe is the general-secretary of Equal Education, and Daniel Sher is the deputy head of policy and training.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

Cape Argus

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