Members of non-profit organisation Equal Education (EE) will today protest at the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in Pretoria against the changes Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga wants to make to the school infrastructure law.
Yesterday, EE Gauteng members picketed at the DBE offices in Pretoria against the “drastic and unacceptable” changes that Motshekga wants to make to the Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure. The minister signed the Norms and Standards into law in 2013.
”Never before did South Africa have a law saying what basic infrastructure a school must have, and by when it must be provided. We went to court in 2018 to get Minister Motshekga to fix gaps in the law, not to water it down!,” the organisation said.
The EE said the scariest change that Motshekga wants to make to the school infrastructure law is to scrap the deadlines that put the responsibility on the government to get rid of pit latrines and provide basics such as water, electricity, classrooms, libraries etc, by specific dates.
“The current deadlines entitle learners to decent school infrastructure right now. Without the urgency and accountability that is demanded by the deadlines, poor and working class communities will never know when their schools will be fixed,” EE said.
According to the organisation, the current school infrastructure deadlines include 2013, when the school infrastructure law was effected into law and immediately banned plain pit latrines from all public schools; the November 2016 deadline that all public schools in South Africa should have been provided with some access to water, electricity and acceptable toilets; the November 29, 2020 deadline where all public schools in South Africa should have been provided with enough classrooms, enough electricity, enough water, and enough proper toilets; the November 29, 2023 deadline for all public schools in South Africa should have been provided with libraries and laboratories and the December 31, 2030 deadline that all public schools in South Africa should have been provided with halls, sports fields and all the other infrastructure.
The DBE’s initial closing date for feedback from the public on its proposed changes was July 10 but the closing date was changed to 31 July after EE and the Equal Education Law Centre raised public awareness about the unfairness of having only one month to make submissions, and after they wrote two letters of concern to the DBE.
“We are still worried that the proposed changes are drafted in a way that is very difficult to understand, which limits the ability of members of the public to submit feedback to the DBE. We call on school communities to make submissions to the DBE, and to say NO to the scrapping of the #DeadlinesToFixSchools,” EE said.