Part 4

Does your school contain asbestos?

How do you know if a school building contains asbestos? It’s not that easy, say the experts.

If your school was built after March 2008, when asbestos was banned in South Africa, it’s unlikely to contain asbestos.

But it’s often only possible to identify the presence of asbestos with certainty using laboratory analysis, said Gabriel Mizan, an occuptional hygiene scientist at the National Institute for Occuptional Health (NIOH).

The golden rule is: when in doubt assume the material contains asbestos.

The Gauteng Department of Education did a survey in 2014 to find out which schools were made entirely or partially of asbestos. You can search to see if your school is one of them below:

If you think your school should be on the list but isn’t, you can approach your headmaster or school governing body to find out whether an asbestos inspector has been to your school to identify the presence of asbestos, and whether an inventory detailing the location of the asbestos has been made.

The National Institute for Occupational Health offers general awareness training to give people the tools to do a basic risk assessment. It also analyses air and material samples for the presence of asbestos.

Help us keep our asbestos in schools list up to date

Please contact us at info@passmark.org.za if you know your school has structures that contain asbestos, but it isn't on the GDE's list, or if it's on the list but shouldn't be.