Fees and governance: Towards sustainability in water resources management at schools in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

Water scarcity is increasingly staking a claim next to energy as a threat to the sustainability of large cities, especially in developing countries with limited resources. The recent crisis brought on by Cape Town’s “Day Zero” drought created the impetus to expand on existing research on water demand management to include analysis of school usage patterns and key determinants thereof. With the effects of apartheid still visible in society and in school infrastructure coupled with the high water usage rates at schools, this paper evaluates the impact of school affluence (whether it is fee-paying or not, and self-governing or not) on water usage. We find that poor schools use substantially more water, partially because of poor maintenance, with mean water efficiencies of poor schools around 50% and 80% for affluent schools. Bayesian models were used to further determine which characteristics of a school are good proxies for the higher usage to help administrators and policy makers in the resource constrained educational environment. In addition to the obvious impact of maintenance, the results point an incriminatory finger at early morning-school usage, early afternoon usage, and Saturday usage

Water scarcity and poverty: The lasting impact of a maintenance campaign at South African schools across the affluence divide

“…Recent studies performed the most comprehensive analysis of water usage and management within schools in the Western Cape (Visser et al, 2021;Booysen et al, 2019a, b). This included investigating socio-economic effects, behavioural interventions and technical interventions.…”

“…Moreover, Section 21 schools are responsible to pay for their own upgrades, school materials, utility bills and maintenance Samuels et al (2020). These schools are allocated funding by the government, however, from observations made during previous studies this funding was found to be insufficient (Booysen et al, 2019a). In contrast, Section 20 schools are not charged monthly utility costs and are not responsible for their own maintenance.…”

“…From Figure 2b it clear that more affluent high schools use larger amounts of water per person. This is due to several potential factors including more bathrooms at the school; regular watering of the sports grounds; and a higher likelihood of having a hostel (Booysen et al, 2019a). The usage then decreases as the poverty index increases before sharply rising again once the poverty index passes 0.6 for primary schools and 0.7 for high schools.…”

“…The usage then decreases as the poverty index increases before sharply rising again once the poverty index passes 0.6 for primary schools and 0.7 for high schools. The sharp upward trend distinguishes the boundary of fee paying, and no fee paying (Booysen et al, 2019a). Moreover, these schools do not pay their own bills, at best breaking the information loop; at worst disabling a good maintenance regime (Samuels et al, 2020).…”

“…These financial constraints make it exceedingly difficult for schools to maintain their water delivery infrastructure. As a result, they generally lose large amounts of water each month (Booysen et al, 2019a). Moreover, schools are generally billed on a month to month basis using the recorded usages on their municipal water meter.…”