By: Zethu Gweva
Kuyasa High School in Dimbaza, King williams Town is in need of more toilets as 810 pupils continue to utilise 8 toilets to relieve themselves.
The School Governing Body Chairperson Xolani Silashi said the school has 12 toilets but out of the 12 only 8 toilets are functional. He added that the toilets are in an unpleasant condition and if the Department of Health would visit the school, it would be charged.
“We use the schools maintenance money we receive from the Department of Education and we’ve been fixing these toilets for years, but they continue to fracture, we need the department to builds us more toilets,” said Silashi.
The Department of Education Spokesperson Malibongiwe Mtima said the department will investigate the kind of material the school buys and the reason why the toilets break.
“We don’t kick or throw stones at the toilets we sit on them and we going to investigate why the school buys toilets that easily break instead of buying toilets like the ones they had before,” said Mtima.
According to Mtima, although the budget speech was done, the funds allocated for all the departments have not been released yet.
“I can’t lie and say we will build the toilets tomorrow but as soon as the funds are released we will build the toilets.”
During a portfolio meeting with the Department of Education in 2018, Silashi explained that they received promising news that the department will allocate temporary toilets to the school but that promise was never fulfilled.
Pupils from the school Simamnkele Ntshongo and Sinethemba Mzamo spoke about the unbearable smell of the toilets, they don’t have sinks so they are unable to wash their hands.
Mzamo said the girls toilets do not have bins for them to throw their pads in. She explained that they get virginal infactions especailly when the toilets are blocked.
On February 25th the school had another meeting with the department, Silashi said they discussed the toilet issue again and other issues were raised such as the damaged school fence. He added that the department said they will look in to all those issues.
Sending a message to the Department of Education, Silashi said the department must learn to deliver on their promises and the school has faith that since the department visited the school, they will deliver.