‘Who Will We Blame When They Die?’: Parents Shut Down School Over Deadly Pit Toilets

They tried letters. They tried meetings. They tried waiting patiently while their children used toilets that could swallow them whole. When none of it worked, the parents of Tholeni Primary School took the only action left to them: they shut the school down.

On Monday, parents in Impendle, outside Pietermaritzburg, stormed the school grounds, removed learners from classes, and locked the gate. Their demand is simple but urgent: Education MEC Sipho Hlomuka must visit the school and see the dilapidated pit toilets for himself before a single child returns.

“If the Education Department does not care about our children’s safety, we care,” said Khulani Xaba, chairperson of the School Governing Body. “We decided to be proactive and act to protect them from dying in these dilapidated pit toilets.”

A Death Trap in Plain Sight

The parents’ desperation is rooted in a horrifying reality: across South Africa, children have died after falling into pit latrines. The images are seared into the national consciousness. Yet here, in 2026, Tholeni Primary’s learners still use the same dangerous infrastructure.

“Had we not closed down the school, who were we going to blame when our kids die?” Xaba asked.

The pit toilets are not the only crisis. Last year, a tree fell on a school building, collapsing part of the structure. It remains unrepaired, reducing classroom space. Meanwhile, enrollment has explodedfrom 30 learners with one teacher last year to 84 learners this year. The department, Xaba said, has not provided additional teachers.

“Our children were coming to school to play the whole day,” he said. “There is only one teacher.”

A Broken Promise

It has been years since the government announced that pit latrines would be completely eradicated in schools. The promise was made repeatedly, with deadlines set and missed. Yet schools like Tholeni remain stuck in the past, their children using toilets that should have been consigned to history decades ago.

The parents say they exhausted all peaceful processes. They raised the issue repeatedly. No one took them seriously. So they took matters into their own hands.

The Department Responds

KwaZulu-Natal Education Department spokesperson Mlu Mtshali said the department was not aware of the situation and promised to investigate.

For the parents of Tholeni, that response is precisely the problem. How many more investigations, they ask, before a child dies? How many more promises before the infrastructure is safe?

The school remains closed. The parents stand at the gate. The MEC has been summoned. And 84 children waitout of class, out of learningbecause the alternative was to risk their lives every time nature called.

{Source: IOL}

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