President of UAT Doctor Bantu Wanda Mahlatsi
By Doer Mighty Mabule
UAT Head of Communications & National Spokesperson
The United Africans Transformation (UAT) is heartbroken and outraged by the recent comments made by Minister Siviwe Gwarube during her presentation to Parliament on the state of South Africa’s schools.
When the Minister confidently told the nation that “90% of schools are in fair to excellent condition,” she did not speak for the thousands of learners still sitting in unsafe classrooms, walking through cracked walls, and using broken, undignified toilets.
She certainly did not speak for the parents and teachers in rural villages and overcrowded townships who are crying out for change.
This is not just about pit toilets. It is about children being sent to school every day in buildings that are falling apart.
It’s about students learning in scorching hot container classrooms with no windows and no proper ventilation.
It’s about taps that don’t run, lights that don’t switch on, and schools without a single working toilet.
And still, we are told things are “mostly fine.”
Minister Gwarube herself admits that more than 8,000 schools still need proper classrooms, and that over 13,000 schools don’t have enough toilets to meet the needs of growing learner numbers.
And yet, her department missed its own deadline to eliminate pit toilets by 31 March 2024 a promise made to South Africans years ago.
These are not just backlogs. These are broken promises.
And behind every one of those numbers is a child who deserves better.
It is not good enough to say, “we are working on it.”
Our children are not construction projects.
They are people.
They are the future.
And right now, many of them are being forced to learn in spaces that rob them of their dignity, safety, and hope.
UAT believes that every child in this country deserves to walk into a clean, safe, and fully equipped school not one day in the distant future, but now.
That is why we are calling on the Department of Basic Education to urgently conduct a full, independently verified audit of every public school in South Africa, and to release the findings openly and honestly to the people.
Communities have a right to know the truth.
We are also demanding a focused emergency plan that addresses the most dangerous infrastructure failures collapsing classrooms, lack of water and electricity, and the disgrace of pit toilets.
This plan must have clear deadlines and be implemented with urgency, not excuses.
Most importantly, we are demanding that the Department finally start listening to the voices of the people parents, teachers, and learners themselves. For too long, they’ve been speaking out and being ignored.
That must end now.
United Africans Transformation stands with every child who has had to learn in fear, every parent who has sent their child to school with a heavy heart, and every teacher doing their best in impossible conditions.
We will not allow this government to continue hiding behind statistics while our children suffer in silence.
This is not about politics.
It’s about justice, dignity, and the kind of country we want to become.
Our children are watching. Let’s not fail them again.