Statement of the Congress of South African Students Post 1st National Working Committee Meeting
10 March 2015
The Congress of South African Students (COSAS) is from its first National Working Committee Meeting which amongst other issues resolved on declaring March as the month of addressing the burning question of the state of school toilets in South Africa. The National Working Committee declared March as the month of School Toilets, COSAS throughout the month will be focused on addressing the matter in various platforms.
As a students' movement we have produced a formal document which speaks to the state of toilets in our schools. In the document, the organization notes the dire condition of toilets in most schools, with statistics from the department of basic education portraying that the worst conditions of toilets in schools are found in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo province.
In the deliberations of the Congress of South African Students on the debacle, the elephant in the room has always been the dangerous and hazardous nature of the toilets and how they continue to also strip off dignity on the learners and teachers in schools. As a movement we have made a comparison on the nature of toilets during the apartheid era and today in a democratic and supposedly free country.
We noted that the status quo still remains with schools in the rural areas and townships still breathing inequality when compared to former Model-C and private schools. The standards still remain unequal, 21 years into our democracy.