Limpopo Education denies claims of 600 pupils sharing 1 toilet
The Department of Education in Limpopo has denied reports of a severe shortage of bathroom facilities at Mahumani Secondary School in Giyani.
The Sowetan reported on Tuesday that some 600 pupils at the school had to make due with only one toilet.
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The newspaper also claims the school is overcrowded with 50 pupils in a classroom.
The provincial department’s Sam Makhondo says there are in fact two separate bathrooms with four toilets each.
“The school has 604 learners, and not 659 learners as reported, and there are two toilets with 8 seats. So it is inaccurate to say the least that there is one toilet available for 659 learners and the school does not even have such a number of learners.”
Makhondo admits that overcrowding is a problem at the school, saying it is due to a loss of infrastructure.
“Some of the classrooms are not being used as a result of the damage and obviously for safety reasons.
“So as a department we are busy processing the recommendations that were done after the school was damaged by the storms to address the overcrowding.”