Pupils write to MEC for more toilets

Hundreds of Eastern Cape pupils have written to the MEC of education, Mandla Makupula, demanding proper toilets at their schools.

The pupils, who are members of Equal Education, are from 23 schools located in the Dimbaza, Zwelitsha, King William’s Town and Bhisho areas.

Yesterday, the pupils met at the Skenjana Roji Hall in Bhisho to draft their own set of standards that stipulate what sanitation at their schools ought to look like.

Speaking to the Dispatch, Amanda Rinquest, deputy head of EE Eastern Cape, said yesterday’s event was to highlight the gendered impact of undignified and unsafe sanitation in schools around the province.

“This is a crisis that affects mostly female pupils because they are the ones who miss school when they get an infection from these unhygienic toilets,” said Rinquest.

Rinquest said of the 23 schools represented yesterday, only two had sanitary bins in their toilets, some toilets had no doors and some were not flushing.

Sisipho Somkenqe, a 15-year-old Grade 9 pupil at Hector Peterson High School in Zwelitsha, said using the toilet at her school was embarrassing because none of them had doors.

“You cannot go to the toilet alone, you need to go with a friend who is willing to stand at the door to cover you from view.

“Because there are no sanitary bins we are forced to put our dirty sanitary pads in a plastic bag and take them home with us.

“This is just an embarrassing situation,” said Sisipho.

Zizipho Gaka, a 17-year-old Grade 11 pupil at Charles Morgan High in Ginsberg, said a number of girls picked up vaginal infections from the unhygienic toilets at the school.

“I was infected once and had to miss school.

“The nurses at the clinic do not trust us and think we have sexually transmitted disease,” said Zizipho.

She said there were only eight toilets for the 600 plus pupils at the school.

“Because there aren’t enough toilets, some pupils relieve themselves on the floor.

“The toilets always break and they are not cleaned,” said Zizipho.

Late last year, an investigation by Equal Education into the the state of sanitation in 60 Eastern Cape schools revealed that:

lThere are very few toilet facilities for pupils with disabilities;

lOnly 15% of schools visited had waterborne toilets;

lThe pupil-to-toilet ratios in the norms and standards for school infrastructure were not applied.

At 52% of the schools visited there were more than 30 pupils per toilet, and at 65% there were more than 30 pupils per working toilet.

At one school, the ratio of pupils to working toilets was 294:1

lToilets were routinely filthy and broken;

lPupils often were not provided with toilet paper, soap and waste bins; and

lA lack of maintenance staff and lack of funding contributed to the poor conditions.

Rinquest said the letters and the norms and standards drafted by the pupils would be handed over to the MEC next week.