Zakhele Primary School, official handover: 5 March 2026
On 19 September 2025, a young learner at Zakhele Primary School in Upper Tongaat, KwaZulu-Natal, went to the toilet during the school day and narrowly escaped a fatal fall.
The concrete slab beneath her feet gave way. Within seconds, the Grade 5 learner disappeared into the pit below.
She was pulled out by the school principal, Mrs SN Gumede, and rushed to a nearby clinic with serious injuries. She survived.
The pit toilets remained.
The area was cordoned off. Parents helped place a temporary cover over the hole. Yet for the next five months, the ageing pit toilets, with cracked walls, unstable floors and toxic asbestos roofing, continued to pose a daily risk to the school’s 250 learners.
Zakhele Primary School was built in 1995. Today, it serves 250 learners, including 46 Grade R children and seven children with disabilities. Seven teachers work every day to create stability and learning in classrooms where infrastructure is visibly deteriorating.
Outside, only eight dark, unhygienic pit toilets served the entire school community.
The boys’ section had begun to collapse. Walls were cracked. Holes had formed in the floors, in spite of parents’ repair efforts. During heavy rain, water flooded the unpaved area around the toilets, making access unsafe. At times, children avoided using the facilities altogether.
They waited.
They held it in.
In a letter to Breadline Africa, the principal wrote plainly:
“Both boys and girls are sharing one toilet because of the holes and cracked walls. Even the roofs are leaking.”
The language is restrained. The reality is not.
What happened to this young child was not an unforeseeable accident. It was the predictable consequence of infrastructure left to deteriorate over decades.
Across South Africa, thousands of children continue to rely on unsafe pit toilets. The country has already mourned children who have fallen into them. Each time, there is public outrage. Each time, there are commitments that this will not happen again.
Yet in many schools, the risk remains.
A school should be a place of safety and learning. It should never be a place where a child can disappear through a cracked slab of concrete.
With funding from the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), Breadline Africa, in partnership with Envirosan, replaced the unsafe sanitation and restored the dignity of the children of Zakhele Primary School.
On 5 March 2026, the school officially received 18 new sanitation facilities: low-flush toilets, waterless urinals and two accessible toilets for children with disabilities, along with new handwashing stations.
Learners marked the occasion with a drama performance on hygiene and sanitation, as well as poetry and artwork celebrating the school community. Guests, partners and school leadership gathered for the official handover and ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Deon Botha, Head of Corporate Affairs at the PIC, said the asset manager is committed to responsible corporate citizenship and recognises the broader interests of the communities in which it and its investee companies operate.
“Last year, the PIC invested R2.49 million in community support programmes to help build safe and conducive learning environments in underprivileged schools. Corporate Social Investment programmes focus on improving public education, including sanitation, learning facilities, socio-economic development, agriculture and environmental sustainability,” Mr Botha said.
Marion Wagner, CEO of Breadline Africa, said:
“No child should face danger simply to use the toilet at school. Replacing pit toilets removes an immediate risk, but the scale of need across South Africa remains significant. Sustainable progress depends on partnership between government, investors and civil society.”
Principal SN Gumede added:
“The incident was a frightening reminder of how vulnerable our children are. The new facilities mean our learners can come to school and focus on their education without fear. This has restored a sense of safety and confidence across our school community.”
All children deserve safe sanitation. They deserve toilets and classrooms where teachers can focus on teaching, not on whether the ground beneath their learners’ feet will give way.
One young child survived. Another child might not.
Below is the Pit Toilet Replacement Campaign Baseline Report for Zakhele Primary School.
