The current water and sanitation provision at rural schools KwaZulu-Natal: The Built Environment Professionals Perspective

South Africa has made a substantial amount of progress with regards to basic service delivery since the end of apartheid in 1994, however, there still remains major disparities between the various provinces and municipalities within the country. Water and sanitation provisions particularly in schools in rural areas of South Africa, in many instances lack dignity for learners and teachers. This also undoubtedly raises health concerns for learners, teachers and administrative staff at the schools. Rural communities in particular, have access to far less, as a result of unequal development, poverty and the cost of providing bulk infrastructure services for water and sanitation, to distant rural areas of the country. This study adopted a quantitative research approach. Online questionnaires were purposively emailed to 120 built environment professionals who are involved in the provision of water and sanitation facilities to schools in KwaZulu-Natal. Fifty-two completed responses were received. The data was analysed, utilising descriptive statistics. It was found that the government has made a concerted effort to ensure that school going children have been provided with water and sanitation facilities. However, this paper highlights that once the provision was made, very little else was provided to advance the current situation. In many schools across the province, children are still subjected to unhygienic water and sanitation conditions at school which affects their health and learning experience.