Almost half of schools in Western Cape do not meet the prescribed pupil-to-toilet ratio, while corporal punishment continues virtually unchecked. These were just some of the findings of a social audit released by NGO Equal Education yesterday into the safety and sanitation conditions at schools in the province.Of the 244 schools audited, 42% did not meet the Western Cape education department minimum of one toilet for every 35 learners. That number rose to 57% when broken toilets were accounted for, while 25% qof the 912 learners surveyed said there was no toilet paper in their bathrooms.According to the report, a lack of capacity to control movement in and out of schools left many schools vulnerable to burglaries and vandalism, and resulted in a R32.5-million loss for the department between 2013 and 2015. More than half of schools did not employ a full-time security guard and the responsibility for school safety often fell on teachers and principals.The report also showed that despite corporal punishment being illegal, it was still administered at 83% of schools surveyed, often with the use of weapons.Nishal Robb, the head of Equal Education in the Western Cape, said he hoped the department would recognise that there were serious gaps in the current approach to school safety and the provision and maintenance of essential infrastructure such as toilets and fencing.“We need political will on the part of politicians and public officials responsible for providing each learner with access to schools in which they can learn without fear and with access to the resources they need,” Robb said.The NGO handed the report to education MEC Debbie Schafer, at a press conference in Cape Town yesterday.About 50 students in attendance demanded a response to the findings within a fortnight.Schafer would not commit to meeting the deadline.After the conference she said: “No one tells me how to do my job. There will be a response [but] it may not be a full response. It depends on how far we get with the findings.”Equal Education ran a similar sanitation audit of 200 public schools in Gauteng last year.It showed that on average 100 students had to share one toilet at township schools throughout the province...