How changes in school infrastructure grant will put safety of pupils on the line
The premature phasing out of funding programme risks leaving schools without appropriate buildings or sanitation facilities
22 May 2022 - 00:00
In 2014, five-year-old Michael Komape died when trying to use the dilapidated pit latrine at his school in Chebeng village, Limpopo. He fell in and drowned in human waste. In March 2018, Lumka Mketwa, also five, suffered the same fate. Lister Magongwa, 7, died in 2013 after the walls of a toilet collapsed on him, as did Siyamthanda Mtunu, 6, in 2017. No schoolchild should have to face these horrors. But changes to school infrastructure grants, announced by the basic education portfolio committee on May 10, risk leaving schools without appropriate buildings or sanitation facilities...
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