A quality education is the single, most important thing the government must provide for all South African children. Do you agree?

Human rights organisations around the world say that education is not just a basic human right. It is the crucial right that makes it possible for a person to claim, fight for or experience many other important rights.

For example, good education can lift people out of poverty, help them fight discrimination, improve women’s rights and keep children safer from child labour and sexual abuse. Well-educated people are better able to access state resources such as health care and social grants and better able to help to protect the environment. People with more education often choose to limit family size, and this is a step towards sustainable population growth. Good education helps every person to have an active, questioning mind and achieve their full potential in today’s literate world.

In our Constitution, Section 29 says that “everyone has the right to a basic education”. It is compulsory for every South African child to attend school until the end of Grade 9, and poor people do not need to pay fees. For most other socio-economic rights – such as to decent housing – the Constitution says the government must try by all reasonable means to provide them. Basic education, however, must be given to all children.

It’s true that providing quality schooling for all is a massive task. It’s an achievement that today all our children go to school. But, sadly, 20 years later the inheritance of the apartheid education system is still very much with us. The few children who go to well-run schools with proper resources have a huge advantage over the many children at badly equipped, or badly-run and staffed schools. Of course these disadvantaged children are almost all from poor black families. This is certainly not ‘equal rights’.

In 2011 the Department of Basic Education published a report on its 24 793 schools. Look at these shocking facts about the schools:

• 3 544 did not have electricity and 804 more had unreliable electricity
• 2402 did not have a water supply and 2611 more had an unreliable water supply
• 913 had no toilets at all and 11 450 schools (about half) were using pit toilets
• 22 938 had no libraries and 21 021 had no laboratories (almost all of them)
• 2 703 had no fences
• 19 037 had no computer centre, and 3 267 had a room but no computers
• over 400 schools in the Eastern Cape were still made of mud and asbestos sheets.

As you saw in the story ‘The right thing to do‘ the children at Sol Plaatje school often could not concentrate on their studies. For example the teachers sometimes did not arrive, and the toilets were so disgusting that many girls tried to avoid using them. Some even become dehydrated because they did not drink enough. The state of the toilets contributed to sexual abuse at the school. Imagine what it is like in a school with no water or toilets at all?

The good news is that in November 2013 the Department of Education was finally pressured into signing a ‘Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure’ law. The pressure came mainly from the organisation Equal Education. This law lays out the facilities that every school must have. The essential list includes water, electricity, internet, working toilets, safe classrooms, 40 learners or fewer per class, and security. Next the Department must try by all means to supply the very expensive items: libraries, laboratories and sports facilities.

Organisations like Equal Education, communities and students (like the go-getting leader Yongama in The right thing to do story) now have to check that the Department quickly follows the law so that every child experiences his or her right to proper education.