Initiative aims to put an end to pit latrines
Equal Education says it is ironic that basic education minister Angie Motshekga continues to resist fixing flaws in the rules governing school infrastructure
President Cyril Ramaphosa launched a campaign to eliminate dangerous school toilets on Tuesday, calling on the private sector to help ensure pit latrines become a relic of the past. The campaign follows a series of tragedies at schools with unsafe sanitation, the most recent of which was the death of five-year-old Lumka Mkhethwa, who drowned in a pit toilet at her school in Mbizana in the Eastern Cape in March. “This is an initiative that will save lives and restore the dignity of tens of thousands of our nation’s children, as our constitution demands. (It) will spare generations of young South Africans the indignity, discomfort and danger of using pit latrines and other unsafe facilities in our schools,” he said at the launch. The Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) initiative aims to eliminate pit latrines in schools by 2030, and is a partnership between government, the UN Children’s Fund, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the National Education Collaboration Trust. Ramaph...
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