Remember the Rainbow Nation that Nelson Mandela envisioned, a South Africa where ubuntu would be at the centre of our value system, a democratic South Africa that would seek to correct the injustices of the past and ensure that its people are protected and taken care of.

Now imagine it is winter, you are walking to school for +2 hours, on an empty stomach, getting into a classroom with no windows and your torn jersey and absence of shoes are what is meant to keep you warm. There are 60+ learners in class; the teacher is overworked, no textbooks available and when you need to go to the toilet, it is a pit toilet that is dangerous, unsanitary, and unsafe. In post apartheid, democratic South Africa!

With all of this, as a learner you are expected to perform and go out into universities, cope and compete with learners who are from private schools – where teachers gave them attention and where they did not learn in dire and dehumanizing situations, and where they are nurtured to expect to succeed.The South African basic education landscape in the poor black communities is dehumanising.

Many of us don’t have to imagine this scenario because it is a daily lived experience. Many of our parents could not afford to take us to private schools where there would be 20 learners in one class, and state-of-the-art school facilities including flushing toilets and computer labs.Private schools that provide its learners with educational capital through affiliations and networking, where learning takes place both inside and outside the classrooms on excursions.

And this reality paints the inequality present in South Africa. Our education system, despite what is inscribed in the freedom charter and constitution, remains one of the most unequal in the world. Issues of overcrowding and debilitating infrastructure are worsened by a CAPS curriculum with standards that continue to be lowered – the pass rate has been lowered to 30% and children are being “passed” so that they do not remain in the system. Yes, our education system has gone to produce students who became doctors and accountants, but we never really look at some of the struggles that they had to go through. Struggles which could have been alleviated from a basic education level.

Schools are meant to look a certain way in terms of classroom dimensions, toilet ratios, teacher/learner ratios, sports facilities, schools halls where parents can reconvene for school meetings or concerts. Schools are meant to look a certain way to ensure that the developmental and educational process occurs at all levels for example learning outside through sports or computer labs and laboratories etc. And yet we still have schools in provinces like Limpopo where learners have classes under a tree, where fences are non-existent, where some schools have no toilets and those that have toilets – it is a pit latrine. I mean we all get worried about public toilets’ cleanliness – now imagine young girls using pit toilets that are not maintained!

In 2013, Minister Motshekga signed the Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure also known as the school infrastructure law. The school infrastructure law defines the infrastructural conditions that make a school a school. The law also has stipulated deadlines in which they describe how and what public schools must have such as safe water, electricity, adequate classrooms, safe and adequate toilets etc. However, Minister Motshekga has proposed a change to this law where she proposes 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, etc by specific dates.

The current deadlines entitle learners to decent school infrastructure right now. 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.They will continue to be on the receiving end of poor service delivery which has been a part of their lives. Many of the policies and decisions seem to put the poor population in the margins and they suffer the most. The fact that the Minister has put this proposal to remove deadlines to fix schools on the table is a clear reflection of our education system. An education system that should have been changed as we stepped into democracy.
The transition from apartheid to democracy was obviously going to be a hurdle because of the spatial injustice that apartheid created by pushing black people outside of the CBD but ensuring that they commute to the CBD for work. This spatial injustice caused by apartheid ensured that black people receive bantu education and their schools are the ones that do not receive adequate funding as opposed to the white schools. Hence many of our public schools in poor communities are inadequate, despite efforts of teachers and community members.

It has been said that these public institutions suffer because community members who use these institutions do not pay and hence the schools end up becoming inadequate. But my larger question is, these public schools are subsidized by the government – why is the basic education budget getting smaller? An additional problem is that even as our unemployment rate continues to climb, qualified teachers are sitting at home and not in classrooms teaching. Is that not a problem?

Our learners deserve to learn in dignified spaces, and they deserve to learn from African perspectives and become problem solvers and changemakers. Leaders like Minister Motshekga need to be removed because they are operating from a point of privilege constantly placing poor populations on the periphery.