17 October 2024
Teachers and learners at Mampondo Primary School in the Eastern Cape are sharing two pit toilets. Photos: Yamkela Ntshongwana.
Eight staff members and 135 learners are sharing two broken pit toilets at Mampondo Primary School in Sicwenza location, outside Flagstaff in the Eastern Cape.
School governing board (SGB) members say an eight-year-old boy in June and a six-year-old in August had to be rescued after they fell into the toilets.
The school has 12 pit toilets but only two are usable, although they are broken. SGB chairperson Siyabonga Ndlala said they are the same toilets he used as a learner at the school in the early 1990s.
Ndlala said “We have tried every way possible and we are tired now.”
He volunteers to guard learners whenever they need the toilets, but he was not there on the day the six-year-old fell.
“Luckily kids were clever enough to quickly call the school principal while others were saving him. I have three grandchildren who are attending this school and we live in fear.” He said there are bushes near the school but it would be dangerous for the children to use them. “They have no choice but to use these toilets,” he said.
Mampondo is among the oldest primary schools in Flagstaff. The toilets are without doors; seats are loose or broken; the collapsing roofing is full of holes and held down by rocks, which also poses a danger to the children.
Asiphe Gxabhu, the mother of the rescued six-year-old, said her child is still traumatised. He told her he fell when wrestling with some older kids.
“I think it also helped that the toilet was full. Other parents managed to rush to the school and they cleaned him,” said Gxabhu.
“I wish the government could build toilets for the school … I think what traumatises him most is having to use the same toilets. Those toilets are a disaster waiting to happen.”
In 2019 President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the R6.9-billion Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) programme. National basic education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said 3,375 schools in the programme had needed intervention and 92% had since been provided with appropriate sanitation. He said 279 schools remained to be completed by 31 March 2025.
Provincial education spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said Mampondo is not on the SAFE school list. He said there are 427 schools with toilets that do not meet the minimum standards. These are on a three-year plan, and 75 will be fixed this financial year.
One of the two usable pit toilets at the school.