SECTION27 SEEKING TO INTERVENE IN YET ANOTHER UNSAFE SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE CASE TO CALL FOR BETTER SECURITY AT SCHOOLS TO PREVENT DANGEROUS INFRASTRUCTURE CONDITIONS.
Tuesday 19 October 2021 – SECTION27 is applying to be admitted as amicus curiae in a case about unsafe school infrastructure in Gauteng, concerning a tragic incident where a learner was electrocuted and died at school because circuit breakers, earth leakage and other electrical equipment had repeatedly been stolen, which made the school environment unsafe.
The matric learner passed away in January 2017, but over four years later, the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has not confirmed that they have addressed the unsafe infrastructure at the school. Learners at the school therefore remain at risk of serious injury or death. Risks to learners’ safety and rights need to be prevented at all costs, and where dangerous infrastructure is flagged (as was the case at this school), provincial education departments must remedy the situation timeously so that catastrophes like this never occur.
Unsafe school infrastructure violates learners’ interconnected rights to basic education, an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being, children’s right to have their best interests considered as paramount in all matters concerning them, equality, dignity, and life. The relevant departments must be proactive and comply with their duties to prevent injuries and deaths due to unsafe infrastructure at all schools, and not only in high-profile cases reported on in the media.
The case will be heard virtually in the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division) on Thursday 21 September 2021. SECTION27 seeks to be admitted as amicus curiae (friend of the court) to make submissions which highlight the pattern of neglect for learner safety, the prevalence unsafe school infrastructure and an absence of accountability by public officials for tragedies that have happened due to unsafe school infrastructure across the country. SECTION27 does not represent the deceased learner’s family.
At the school in question, electrical equipment like circuit breakers and earth leakage were vandalised and stolen from the school at least three times because the school was not fenced or secured. The school reported this as early as March 2016, and regularly in monthly reports to the local district and GDE offices. Adequate perimeter fencing and security measures are a statutory requirement for schools: the Minimum Norms and Standards of Public School Infrastructure state that all schools must have perimeter fencing of at least 1.8m high and at least one additional security measure like burglar bars, alarms or a security guard to ensure that school property is not stolen or vandalised.
Provincial education departments were supposed to deliver fencing and security infrastructure to all schools by 29 November 2020; a deadline which the GDE failed to meet. Had the GDE met its statutory obligations to provide this school with security, persistent theft of life-saving electrical safety equipment at the school would have been less likely, and this learner may not have tragically died when they did.
In the year in which the child died, an independent report commissioned by the GDE found them negligent, but no action was immediately taken to make sure school conditions were made safer. In fact, according to infrastructure monitoring reports from the GDE, between 2017 and 2018 – the year in which the learner died – no schools in Gauteng were provided with fencing and security. And to date, close to a year after the deadline for providing fencing to schools and four years after the death of this learner, it is not clear whether the electrical equipment and security measures necessary to prevent them from being stolen have been delivered to the school, and learners may remain at risk.
Our submissions, if we are admitted, will address the following:
- The systemic nature of unsafe school infrastructure;
- Government’s historical and current non-compliance with statutory, constitutional and common law obligations to ensure safety at schools, focusing on the need to adequately secure schools to prevent vandalism and theft of infrastructure;
- The role of public officials, including government officials and educators, in keeping learners safe in loco parentis (in the place of a parent) while learners are at school, and the need for accountability for failures in this regard;
- The need for the court to issue a ‘Mandamus’ that requires the GDE to take immediate action to fix the problems at this school and maintain judicial oversight to make sure a tragedy like this is never repeated.
Learners have the right to a basic education in an environment that is safe and conducive to learning, and each and every school – including those attended by poor and black learners – must be compliant with regulations on safe school infrastructure so that vulnerable learners are not put at risk and their rights jeopardised.
[ENDS]
For media queries, access to our court papers and information about how media may join the court hearing, contact:
- Julia Chaskalson (SECTION27 Research and Advocacy officer) 0834402674 chaskalson@section27.org.za
Please note! SECTION27 does not represent the bereaved family and is not at liberty to give out their particulars, but we can comment on systemic issues of unsafe school infrastructure in South African schools.
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