{"id":239206,"date":"2022-10-05T21:38:08","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T19:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/section17-wants-decision-to-suspend-infrastructure-projects-at-limpopo-schools-declared-unlawful-and-unconstitutional\/"},"modified":"2022-10-05T21:38:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T19:38:08","slug":"section27-goes-to-court-to-get-limpopo-schools-fixed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/section27-goes-to-court-to-get-limpopo-schools-fixed\/","title":{"rendered":"Section27 goes to court to get Limpopo schools fixed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/ezekiel_kekana\/ratseke_building_1_2.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/section27-goes-to-court-to-get-limpopo-schools-fixed.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Learners in grades 1, 2 and 3 at Ratseke Primary School at Ga-Ratseke Village, Bolobedi in Limpopo, have to squeeze together in class after two mobile classrooms burned down on 16 May in a protest over the Limpopo Department of Education\u2019s failure to keep its promise to build a new school. Photo: Ezekiel Kekana<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Section27 wants the court to declare the state\u2019s decision to suspend building projects at public schools in Limpopo unlawful and unconstitutional. This decision was taken during the lockdown in September 2020.<\/li>\n<li>Many schools in Limpopo have dilapidated buildings that pose a serious risk to learners and staff, the organisation says.<\/li>\n<li>This will be Section27\u2019s second court challenge against the Limpopo education department. In 2021, the High Court in Limpopo ruled in the \u201cMichael Komape trial\u201d, compelling the state to provide a list of schools with pit toilets and a plan to eradicate them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Public interest law centre Section27 has approached the High Court in Pretoria to compel the Basic Education Minister, the Limpopo Education MEC and the provincial Department of Education to retract a decision to suspend building projects at public schools. They want this decision to be declared \u201cunlawful and unconstitutional\u201d.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/section27-goes-to-court-to-get-limpopo-schools-fixed.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>The National Treasury and the Finance Minister have also been listed as respondents in the application.<\/p>\n<p>This comes two years after Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and the Limpopo education department suspended renovation, building and repair projects in most public schools due to the Covid lockdown. Though the lockdown has since ended, much-needed projects at dilapidated schools remain in limbo.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/section27.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/SGB-of-Ndzalama-Others-v-Government-of-SA-Others-Notice-of-motion-and-Founding-Affidavit_Redacted.pdf\">court papers<\/a> filed at the end of August 2022, Section27 includes information about four \u201cforgotten\u201d schools: Ndzalama Primary, Dingamanzi Primary, Chameti Secondary, and Bvuma Primary.<\/p>\n<p>Julia Chaskalson, research and advocacy officer at Section27, said conditions at these four schools \u201cendanger the lives of staff and learners, disrupt teaching and learning, and violate children\u2019s rights to dignity, equality, and basic education\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>She said at Ndzalama in Giyani, a storm blew off the school\u2019s roof in 2012, leaving learners without classrooms. At Chameti Secondary, mud classrooms \u201care cracked, crumbling, and dangerous\u201d. There are similar issues at Dingamanzi Primary and Bvuma Primary in the Mopani District, where the provincial department has failed to fix many dilapidated school buildings for years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwo years after the suspension of infrastructure projects, we ask the court to review and set aside that decision so that schools we represent can receive infrastructure they urgently need,\u201d Chaskalson said.<\/p>\n<p>The organisation wants recently appointed Education MEC Mavhungu Lerule-Ramakhanya to provide a plan to fix each school within 30 days and to start work on projects at the four schools within 60 days of the order.<\/p>\n<p>Chaskalson said Section27 has also requested the court to compel the department to provide the list of all schools still waiting for repairs, renovation and full construction.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, GroundUp reported on issues at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/limpopo-school-without-roof-for-seven-years\/\">Rakgoatha Primary School<\/a> in the Capricorn District where the school\u2019s roof also blew off during a storm in 2016. We also reported on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/limpopo-village-primary-school-roof-an-accident-waiting-to-happen\/\">Mohokone Primary School<\/a> in the Mopani District, which has been waiting for a proper building since the 1980s. The school\u2019s old building roof is leaking and trusses in some classrooms are broken. The learners at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/community-torch-mobile-classrooms-at-rural-limpopo-school\/\">Rat\u0161eke Primary<\/a> are crammed into mobile classes, while at Mahekgwe Primary, the school\u2019s roof is rusted and windows are broken.<\/p>\n<p>The case will be Section27\u2019s second court challenge against the Limpopo education department over poor school infrastructure. In 2021, the High Court in Limpopo handed down <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/komape-family-wins-school-sanitation-case-limpopo-high-court-seven-years-after-their-five-year-old-son-drowned-pit-toilet\/\">judgment<\/a> in the \u201cMichael Komape trial\u201d compelling the state to provide a list of schools with pit toilets and plans to eradicate them within 90 days and to report every six months on progress.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Komape was five years old when he drowned in a pit toilet at his school near Polokwane in 2014. His death caused widespread outrage and put the use of pit toilets in some 1,500 schools across the province under scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>Spokesperson for the MEC, Mike Maringa, referred GroundUp\u2019s questions to the national department. The Minister of Basic Education\u2019s spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, did not answer our questions but said the department would \u201cdeal with the matter within the legal process since it has been filed in court\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/section27-goes-to-court-to-get-limpopo-schools-fixed.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learners in grades 1, 2 and 3 at Ratseke Primary School at Ga-Ratseke Village, Bolobedi in Limpopo, have to squeeze together in class after two mobile classrooms burned down on 16 May in a protest over the Limpopo Department of Education\u2019s failure to keep its promise to build a new school. Photo: Ezekiel Kekana Section27 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-239206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/section27-goes-to-court-to-get-limpopo-schools-fixed.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}