Members of lobby group Equal Education are expected to hold a picket at the Basic Education Department’s offices in Pretoria on Friday. This is with regard to what they say are the drastic and unacceptable changes that Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga wants to make to the Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure.
They say the minister proposes to remove deadlines to fix schools from the infrastructure legislation. Minister Motshekga signed the Norms and Standards into law in 2013 following pressure from the lobby group.
Five-year-old Michael Komape died after falling into a pit latrine at his school in Chebeng Village, outside Polokwane in 2014.
“The scariest change that Minister Motshekga wants to make to the school infrastructure law is to scrap the deadlines that put the responsibility on the government to get rid of pit latrines and provide basics such as water, electricity, classrooms, libraries by specific dates. Without the urgency and accountability that is demanded by the deadlines, poor and working class communities will never know when their schools will be fixed,” Equal Education’s Deputy General-Secretary Tebogo Tsesane explains.
VIDEO: Basic Education deadline to fix ailing school infrastructure: Elizabeth Biney
