Rights group Amnesty International has urged the government to do more towards ensuring access to quality basic education and facilities for South Africa's school children.
Executive Director, Shenilla Mohamed, said President Cyril Ramaphosa's State of the Nation Address failed to adequately address the plight of children still denied these rights.
“The time for platitudes is over," she said.
"President Cyril Ramaphosa waxed lyrical on what the government has achieved for education but didn’t touch on the challenges facing thousands of children in the country."
She said the government had made "painfully slow" progress in providing schools with safe and appropriate sanitation facilities, with thousands still using pit latrines.
In last year's SONA, Ramaphosa said 699 schools had been provided with safe and appropriate sanitation facilities since the launch of a programme in August 2018 and a further 1,150 schools were either in the planning, design or construction stages.
This was against a backdrop of nearly 4,000 schools still saddled with pit toilets, according to the government’s own figures.
- African News Agency (ANA)
