The Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure put the responsibility of ensuring appropriate infrastructure in schools on the national education department. This has the ultimate aim of making quality teaching and learning possible in all communities around South Africa.
However, new proposals from the DBE would remove deadlines concerning school infrastructure and require provinces to report on the progress of improving schools.
Advocacy group Equal Education (EE) fears that if the latest proposal from the DBE is passed in parliament, learners and teachers will wait for many more years for safe and proper school infrastructure. In recent weeks, the group protested outside parliament in the Western Cape and the DBE offices in Pretoria.
The EE’s Elizabeth Biney says protests will continue until the DBE agrees to fulfil their plans of eradicating inappropriate and unsafe infrastructure at schools.
The proposed amendments would eliminate deadlines which could result in schools waiting many years for appropriate infrastructure. Biney said this is unconstitutional, unfair and morally incorrect.
They explain that the new law would require the provincial education department to provide progress reports concerning school infrastructure. The EE believes that a standardised method of reporting must be introduced as the quality of the information provided by individual provincial departments could differ and it would make it impossible to make fair comparisons on progress.
“We have some provinces offering more information or sophisticated information whilst other provinces are just offering the bare minimum of poor quality information. We know for a fact that this is the current situation we are facing in rural provinces like your Eastern Cape and your Limpopo so that is not acceptable.”
The group also wants the DBE to revise the wording of the draft changes to ensure that any member of the public can understand and comment on the proposals in a meaningful way.
“These issues that are being put forward affect the most vulnerable members of our communities. It affects a huge segment of our population so for this proposal to be put in a language and in a manner that the public cannot engage with it's not acceptable”.
Following the protests, the DBE issued an extension for the public to comment on the draft amendments to the regulations around the minimum norms and standards for public school infrastructure.
Members of the public and organisations will now have until 31 July 2022 to make written submissions concerning the proposal.
