Fighting for decent toilets in Gauteng schools

About 2,000 students and parents from Tembisa, Kwa Thema, Daveyton and Tsakane attended the march to the Gauteng Department of Education’s (GDE) offices in central Johannesburg, where a memorandum was handed over to the MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi.

Equal Education Gauteng has been campaigning for improved school sanitation in the province for over a year. The campaign originated in the Tembisa youth group, where members first raised the issue because it affects their education, health and dignity.

In August and September last year, our members did a two-week sanitation audit of 11 of the 13 high schools in Tembisa, noting the conditions in their toilets twice a day for this whole period. They found that in over half the schools, more than 100 students had to share a single, working toilet. This formed the evidence base of the campaign, and its accuracy - as well as that of subsequent research - has been a key strength of our demands.

We presented this research to the local District Director, Mr Ephraim Tau, and to former Gauteng MEC for Education Barbara Creecy, and demanded that they provide urgent relief to schools in Tembisa, as well as provide a long-term plan to address the crisis.

After not getting any response from the Gauteng Department of Education, and despite the District Director acknowledging that our characterisation of the situation in Tembisa was accurate, we went public on World Toilet Day, 19 November 2013. Our press release on that day pointed out that in the overcrowded Johannesburg Medium A Prison, 65 men share a single working toilet, as opposed to over 100 students in Tembisa high schools. The release generated widespread media coverage and spurred MEC Creecy to take action.

A meeting was held between Equal Education and the MEC on 26 November. At the meeting MEC Creecy said that she would address the situation in Tembisa at the start of the next year, and that she had also a long-term sanitation plan for schools in Tembisa. However, the MEC refused to share this plan with us, despite our following up in writing with her about this afterwards.

On 12 January 2014, MEC Creecy visited Masiqhakaze High School in Tembisa to clean toilets there, and to announce that she would be delivering ten pre-fabricated toilet blocks to five schools in Tembisa, and an additional ten to other schools in Gauteng. She also said that she would be sending contractors to repair toilets in Tembisa, as well as to 60 other schools in Gauteng.

The toilet blocks were delivered in Tembisa, and contractors did come out and do some repairs at schools in the area. However, by the time MEC Creecy left her post in May the toilet blocks were still not open, and many schools in the area were still in need of urgent sanitation repairs. MEC Creecy had also not developed a long-term sanitation plan for Tembisa or Gauteng.

Photo courtesy of Equal Education.

In the interim, our members (both students and parents) ran sanitation workshops for over 5,000 students to raise awareness about the need to keep school toilets clean. They also started establishing or, where necessary, revitalising school Environment Committees. These are committees of students, parents and teachers in Tembisa responsible for monitoring the school environment, including toilets.

Panyaza Lesufi took over as Gauteng MEC for Education at the end of May. He had previously worked as the Minister of Education spokesperson, and in that capacity had disagreed with and publicly attacked Equal Education on many occasions. He is also originally from Tembisa.

On 8 July our Gauteng leaders, Adam Bradlow and Tshepo Motsepe, met with the new MEC to introduce themselves, hear about his plans for Gauteng and raise the school sanitation crisis in Tembisa with him directly. Lesufi promised to get back to us by 14 July on the situation in Tembisa, and said that he would unblock all school toilets in Gauteng by 31 August - the end of his first 100 days in office. On 15 July, at a public event in Tembisa where Lesufi announced his plans for Gauteng education, he repeated his promise to unblock all toilets by 31 August.

In the weeks thereafter, we followed up with MEC Lesufi, writing him two letters, phoning and emailing officials in his office. However, we got no response. In August, our members in Kwa-Thema and Daveyton also did a sanitation audit in their schools. This audit showed that on any given day, up to 80 toilets were blocked or closed in these areas. On 1 September, we sent a letter to MEC Lesufi stating that since he was ignoring us, we would be marching to his office on 13 September. In the two weeks that followed equalizers in Tembisa reported contractors arriving overnight at their schools, cleaning and unblocking toilets, opening the pre-fabricated toilet blocks, fixing the pipes, painting the walls, fitting new taps and windows. Contractors were also seen on the premises at a few of the schools in Kwa-Thema and Daveyton.

On 11 September, two days before our march, MEC Lesufi called a special press conference in Tembisa, where he announced that he had identified 580 schools in Gauteng for sanitation repairs - at a cost of R150 million - and that since he had taken office, the Gauteng education department had completed repairs at 400 of these schools. The MEC also said that all 51 schools in Tembisa would have their sanitation upgraded, and that he would not only be accepting the memorandum at Equal Education’s march, but that he would be marching with us because he agreed with our demands.

On Friday morning, the day before the Saturday march, our Gauteng leadership met with the MEC at his office, at his invitation. At the meeting the MEC presented a progress report on the GDE’s sanitation work, including a full and detailed schedule of their plans for Tembisa.

Our Gauteng members put great effort into organising the march, which went smoothly. MEC Lesufi, who had joined the march, and even donned an Equal Education T-shirt, accepted the memorandum before offering a response to the crowd.

Our memorandum credited the MEC for engaging with us in a constructive and positive manner, and prioritising the issue of school sanitation through his stated allocation of R150 million to address the issue. We acknowledged the work that the department had already done to fix school sanitation in Tembisa, where the campaign originated.

However, we also demanded that he release the names of the 580 schools identified for sanitation upgrades, including information about what the 400 schools he said had already been upgraded have received, and what the rest of the schools will receive and by when. We reiterated our demand for a long-term plan to address the sanitation crisis in all Gauteng schools, which would include defining an appropriate standard, setting time-frames for implementation and doing all of this in a transparent and accountable manner.

It is clear that what started off as the Tembisa sanitation campaign has been successful. It has succeeded in getting the MEC to direct R150 million towards improving sanitation in township schools in Gauteng, and making the issue a serious policy priority for the department.

The campaign has already delivered tangible results to students in Tembisa, and, if MEC Lesufi is correct, already in a total of 400 schools in Gauteng. If all 580 schools have their sanitation upgraded, about 600,000 students will benefit directly from our activism. The success of this campaign was due to a number of reasons. We took the right issue, one that our members and other students feel strongly about, and on which tangible action can be taken. We conducted rigorous research into the situation at schools, and developed an understanding of the underlying factors, as well as what interventions could remedy the situation. We made an effort to inform and involve our members throughout. This included getting them to do research, clean toilets, and educate and mobilise other students. We articulated the issues clearly and powerfully, in a way that resonates with ordinary people. And our demands are practicable. We made effective use of the media. We also persisted, even when prospects for success looked doubtful. Finally we mobilised our members, bringing them onto the streets in a powerful show of force this past weekend.

There are things which we should have done differently and better. For example, considering the impact Saturday’s march had on MEC Lesufi, we should probably have brought our members out on the street earlier, even when MEC Creecy was still in office.

Lastly, the Gauteng school sanitation campaign has shown how to build on the momentum and legal requirements of the Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure, which came into force at the end of November 2013. Every province is required to ensure that all schools with no sanitation have this by 2016, and that all schools are up to the appropriate standard of sanitation by 2020. But we aren’t waiting for these deadlines. In addition to pushing each province to table its implementation plan by November this year, we are already campaigning for the practical realisation of the norms and standards, on the ground. That’s what this campaign is about.