Ten years after Komape tragedy, many Limpopo schools are still using pit toilets

More than 10 years after five-year-old Michael Komape fell into a school pit toilet and died, teachers and learners in parts of Limpopo are still battling poor sanitation. Some schools still rely on pit toilets despite official promises to eradicate them. In others, toilets are filthy and broken; in one school, teachers urinate behind bushes.

GroundUp visited schools in Limpopo, in the Ga-Mashashane area, which is several villages west of Polokwane.

We found that sanitation facilities in schools were deteriorating. A school we visited still relies on pit toilets. Other schools have filthy Enviro Loos (waterless toilets) in a state of disrepair and in urgent need of maintenance. Others have had mobile toilets, supposedly a temporary solution, for years. Often there are no hand-washing facilities and no running water.

In March 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa and former Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, launched the Sanitation Appropriate for Education (Safe) Initiative, which aimed to eradicate pit toilets in schools and provide them with adequate sanitation.

Since 2018, the Department of Basic Education has set several deadlines for eradicating pit toilets in school. It missed the 2023 and 2024 deadlines. In 2023, SECTION27, a public interest law centre, condemned the “devastatingly slow pace” of the department in eradicating pit toilets.

Komape died in January 2014 after falling into a dilapidated pit toilet at his school in Chebeng, west of Polokwane. His family sued the government and, after a long legal battle, won the case and were awarded damages.

The Limpopo Division of the High Court ordered the Department of Basic Education and Limpopo Department of Education to develop a detailed plan to eliminate pit toilets and provide schools with adequate sanitation, and also “appropriate interim measures to address schools’ urgent sanitation needs and immediate safety risks pending the delivery of permanent sanitation measures”. It further ordered the departments to provide progress reports every six months on the plan.

Earlier this year, Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube announced that the Department of Basic Education had successfully eradicated 96% of pit toilets identified under the 2018 Safe initiative. At the time, SECTION27 raised concerns that the Safe initiative was outdated and that many schools were flying under the department’s radar.

The 2018 Safe audit identified nearly 3,400 schools with improper sanitation.

But in the same year, the Department of Basic Education’s National Education Infrastructure Management System, a database of public school infrastructure, identified about 8,700 schools with pit toilets, about 2,500 of them in Limpopo.

The Limpopo education department categorised schools in three groups. The first group, in priority 1, was the most pressing and only had pit toilets. According to SECTION27’s Michael Komape Sanitation Progress Monitor, based on progress reports submitted from the Limpopo education department, by June 2025, most of these schools had been assisted.

Priority-2 schools have inadequate toilets, with some adequate sanitation but not enough, and may also have pit toilets. In June, nearly 1,000 of these priority-2 schools still needed adequate sanitation. In cases where flushing toilets or Enviro Loos are to be constructed, temporary mobile toilets have to be provided by the Limpopo department.

Priority-3 schools are those that have adequate sanitation but may need renovation.

Mashashane Primary School principal Lydia Kola has been looking forward to a solution to their pit toilets for several years. Currently, teachers and younger foundation-phase children use several pit toilets. Older pit toilets were closed because they were damaged and cracked, and the new pits were built.

Kola said teachers often went behind the bushes next to the school to urinate.

There are Enviro Loos on the premises for the older children. This means that Mashashane primary is categorised as a priority-2 school, and according to the Limpopo education department’s priorities, the deadline for assisting these schools is March 2029.

Kola has since our visit said that the department delivered additional mobile toilets to the school, but the pits remained.

Kola said that the school didn’t get enough money for maintenance. It was maintained “bit by bit” as tranches of money were paid. Water had to be bought because there was no running water at the school. “It’s a human right… Sanitation is a right,” said Kola.

In other cases, where the pit toilets have been removed, schools often rely for years on mobile toilets.

At Morwasethula Primary School, there are four mobile toilets for about 180 learners. When we visited, the toilets were clean.

However, staff members complained that every three months the school needed to renew the contracts with service providers. The Department of Basic Education gave the school money to pay the contractors, who cleaned the toilets and put in new chemicals almost every week.

The school had had mobile toilets for about three years. A staff member said they were not safe for the children.

“We need real toilets.”

The department demolished the pit toilets in 2023.

“They always give us promises,” said the staff member, “but they’ve never come to build new toilets.”

Mobile and chemical toilets are supposed to be a temporary and “short-term emergency solution”, according to a parliamentary answer from the education minister earlier this year. She said then that there were safety concerns since the toilets “lack proper handwashing stations and structural stability if not secured properly”. The toilets must be cleaned frequently to “prevent chemical exposure and hygiene issues”.

In many cases pit toilets have been removed and replaced with Enviro Loos — waterless systems that are fully enclosed, “reducing the risk of children falling in”, according to the minister, and are “ideal for areas where water supply is limited”.

But in some schools, the Enviro Loos need urgent repairs. At Dr MJ Madiba Secondary School, a school nearing its 50th birthday, a staff member said they had been promised proper sanitation facilities for years.

“They are not in good condition at all.”

The school has two Enviro Loos for 95 girls and three for 135 boys. The bathrooms were filthy and some had missing seats. The Enviro Loo vent pipes and fans, crucial components to the system, were broken and in need of repairs.

The Department of Basic Education expects the school to maintain the bathrooms on a very limited budget. The school has asked for help and was told that it had been added to a list.

“We’ve been waiting since. Nothing is happening,” said the staff member. “With the little that we have, we are trying.”

Dr MJ Madiba Secondary School has been plagued by vandalism and theft. The school was without electricity for several months due to vandalism. When the alarms weren’t working, the school was robbed, printers were stolen and even wires and plugs were taken out of the wall. The thieves managed to climb through the roof to enter the area where the learners’ food is stored.

Similarly, when GroundUp visited Jawe-Jawe Ledwaba Secondary School, the Enviro Loos were in a terrible state of disrepair. Vents and fans were broken and some were lying in the grass. Toilets and urinals were broken and filthy.

This is not the case for all schools with Enviro Loos, however, as GroundUp also saw a case of a school with well-functioning and clean Enviro Loo toilets.

Betty Mothapo, an Equal Education community leader in Limpopo, often visits schools in the area, monitors their sanitation, and helps them contact the education department. Mothapo said that while pit toilets were not safe, the alternatives provided by the provincial department were not good enough.

Mothapo, who went to school in Ga-Mashashane and matriculated in 2023, said that she had lived through poor sanitation conditions at a school with pit toilets, sometimes with no doors. “As a girl learner, it was very difficult,” said Mothapo. She said it was especially difficult when she was menstruating and she had limited privacy.

SECTION27 has recently met Gwarube to discuss the Komape court order, specifically challenges with the data the Department of Basic Education is relying on to eradicate pit toilets.

Thato Gaffane, an attorney at SECTION27, said the department was relying on data from contractors about toilet infrastructure, without actually verifying it.

“We are only learning now that they just take what contractors tell them and they send that information to us. They’re not doing assessments to ensure what is being built meets the standard.”

But, Gaffane said, the minister had now set up a consultative forum that included SECTION27 and the Centre for Child Law.

Gaffane noted that Enviro Loos were not a sustainable solution, adding that these would be phased out as part of the priority-2 schools phase.
He said SECTION27 had also received alarming reports about mobile toilets being placed at schools after pits were eradicated. In some cases, the schools had used the mobile toilets for a long time. In other cases, the toilets were not serviced or maintained and could “become a health hazard”.

“Even in schools where toilets are built, the pit toilets are still there for some reason. They’ve not been demolished. And we don’t understand why,” he said.

GroundUp sent questions to the national and Limpopo education departments. The national Department of Basic Education did not respond to requests. The Limpopo department spokesperson, Mike Maringa, did not answer any questions and asked whether we had been granted permission to visit the schools.

We also requested comment from Parliament’s basic education portfolio committee, which promised to respond but did not give a timeframe. DM 

This article was first published by GroundUP.