More than 1,000 pupils in Gauteng are forced to attend lessons in asbestos classrooms because the construction of their new school, which started in 2018, has stalled.
The pupils and 35 teachers of Rust-Ter-Vaal Secondary School in Vereeniging, which was built almost 54 years ago, expected to move into their new R83.5m school in February 2021.
But the project, on which R55m has already been spent, will cost a further R46.3m to complete.
Gauteng education MEC Matome Chiloane informed the provincial legislature earlier this month that no new contract has been awarded for the completion of the school.
Meanwhile, construction of a replacement school for Nancefield Primary in Eldorado Park in Gauteng, which was demolished because it was built of asbestos, has also been abandoned.
The original contract price for the school was R95.7m and an amount of R55.9m was spent on construction before it stalled. While a further R87.9m is needed to complete the school, no new contract for its completion has been awarded.
Nationally, a total of 3,912 schools, including 1,538 in Eastern Cape, have one or more structures with asbestos, according to a recent response given by the department of basic education to Equal Education (EE) after its Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) request.
The department also told EE that 962 schools in KwaZulu-Natal, 562 in Limpopo and 405 in North West have one or more structures with asbestos.
An angry parent of a pupil attending Rust-Ter-Vaal Secondary said they felt betrayed by the provincial education department and the government they voted into power.
“We are still looking forward to moving into new school, but we feel like the prophet Moses in the Bible because we will not be in a position to enter the promised land.”
Children come from all over the Vaal to the school and now, during winter, it’s freezing cold in the asbestos classrooms. To make matters worse, the roofs are made of corrugated iron.
— Parent of Rust-Ter-Vaal Secondary pupil
He expressed serious doubts about whether construction of the incomplete buildings would be starting any time soon.
“Children come from all over the Vaal to the school and now, during winter, it’s freezing cold in the asbestos classrooms. To make matters worse, the roofs are made of corrugated iron.”
Preventime Webster, a member of a group of community activists and parents in Eldorado Park, said it was heartbreaking to see children, including his own child, attend classes in mobile classrooms while they wait for the replacement school for Nancefield Primary to be completed.
“Construction stopped in 2021 apparently because the money ran out. It is bitterly cold now in winter. How are those children expected to concentrate on lessons in those classes? The situation is definitely not conducive for teaching and learning.”
Webster said they met with the Gauteng education department in April and the Gauteng department of infrastructure development in May to express concerns over the delay in the completion of the school.
“Another meeting with the Gauteng department of infrastructure development to discuss time frames for the completion of the construction was scheduled but did not take place.”
Khume Ramulifho, the DA’s education spokesperson in Gauteng, said the province’s statistics on asbestos schools was incorrect as there were more than 300 of them and not 29.
“I challenged them during fourth quarter report and they conceded that there are more schools.”
The EE’s Stacey Jacobs and Elizabeth Biney said pupils still attend schools with hazardous materials like asbestos despite the department of basic education’s commitment to rebuild or revamp these schools as far back as November 2016.
“Therefore, the department is seven years behind on the deadline that they set out for themselves. The delays in upgrading schools with asbestos are a clear violation of learners’ right to safety.”
They said that EE had previously raised the alarm about the dangers posed by asbestos fibres, including that it can cause respiratory illness, lung cancer and mesothelioma.
“Education departments have not shown enough political will and urgency in addressing school infrastructure backlogs because they consistently miss their own set targets and deadlines for infrastructure provisioning.”
The Northern Cape education department’s norms and standards report for public school infrastructure for 2022 indicated that an estimated R3.85bn would be needed to revamp and replace 89 schools which had totally or partially inappropriate structures.
The province stated in its report that 43 of the 89 schools had “entirely inappropriate structures” and they would attempt “to prioritise two replacements of inappropriate structures each financial year”.
Northern Cape education department spokesperson Geoffrey van der Merwe said eight projects involving inappropriate structures were in progress.
“The department applied for additional funding for replacement of all ‘full’ inappropriate structure schools, but the application was unsuccessful.”
Khiba Middle School, which was originally situated in the province’s asbestos belt, was closed down after a prohibition notice from the department of labour and rebuilt outside the asbestos belt.
He, however, admitted that its budget only allowed for the construction of two replacement schools in a financial year and that it was not on target to replace all 43 fully inappropriate schools.
Western Cape education department spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said they were committed to the replacement of the 73 inappropriate schools, but it depended on the available budget “that competes with other urgent priorities such as the demand for new schools and maintenance of all schools”.
KwaZulu-Natal’s education MEC Mbali Frazer told the provincial legislature earlier this year that it required R6.7bn to eradicate asbestos materials at 908 schools, including 303 in the uThukela district, 179 in Amajuba and 177 in Zululand.
Both the Gauteng education department and Gauteng department of infrastructure development, which is responsible for the construction of schools in the province, failed to respond to media queries.
Labour department spokesperson Teboho Thejane said their inspection of Rust-Ter-Vaal last year found that the Gauteng education department did not comply with one of the asbestos abatement regulations by failing to identify areas where there is “asbestos-containing material”.
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