NEWS

Sex In The Classroom - A Call for a Truth Commission


We are a nation obsessed with the truths we can handle. We bury under the rubble of patriotism anything that exposes our vulnerabilities like the Ralushai Report on Traditional Leadership, Operation Dribble, Jali and Khampepe Commissions’ findings, Inquiry into Umkhonto we Sizwe Atrocities and Commission of Inquiry into Witchcraft in Limpopo. We settle for forums where liars can perjure and escape like the Desai, Harms, and Goldstone Commissions, SABC Commission of Inquiry into Blacklisting and Related Matters, Hefer and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions etc.

Today in South Africa, especially brazenly so in Bushbuckridge we are faced with teachers who will obstruct any investigation into their sexual conduct with learners. At the same time we are burdened with teacher unions which instruct their members not to co-operate with whoever tries to investigate such atrocities. And then there are learners who are bribed and intimidated not to talk to any investigator about what they see happening in and outside of classrooms. Incidentally, we have School Governing Bodies which are run by political appointees who themselves are often guilty of the same crime or are taking instructions from their political bosses not to act.

On the ‘blamed’ side is the department of education that is incapable and ill-equipped to execute ‘truth’ investigations of this magnitude. South African Council of Educators does not have a lie detector to know if a teacher is lying about his liaisons with learners and its scope is limited. On the final end we have a Jacob Zuma government that is so focused on its own public image that it spends a lot of time and money on PR than investing in the future. The future is education and education is only feasible when learners don’t fall pregnant and drop out, are not abused by teachers and parents and are afforded the best protection by society. Half the abuse happening in black schools will not suffice in hoërskools and where the SGBs are made up of lawyers, accountants and company executives.

The atrocities committed by teachers in Bushbuckridge warrant a commission of inquiry with judicial powers to subpoena and charge people with perjury if they lie under oath. SADTU has shown its unwillingness to discipline its own members and only a process whereby ten years of abuse will be revisited and people punished can remedy this practice with the potential to arrest development. One wonders why would teachers celebrate an own goal when they score with 14-years old girls?

Without any intervention of judicial proportions there is no future for the girl-child. The Cell C Take A Girl-Child to Work campaign, which Zuma takes part in every year is just a futile money wasting exercise because the girl-child is not going to work but to labour.

Any investigation without judicial powers is a mockery and this year arrogant teachers in Bushbuckridge will be impregnating another bunch, it collapses into the social net and the teachers’ own children will be wearing their shiny blazers as they saunter into hoërskools and seminaries in town. South Africa had cold-blooded killers confessing at the TRC; it can’t fail to get confessions from teachers and former learners – for the sake of our future.


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NEWS

Honour Amongst Thieves - Women Teachers Block Inquiry

There has been strong reactions to the attempt by the management and teaching staff of Ditau High School to block an investigation into allegations that 99% of the school’s male teaching staff is demanding sex from learners as young at 13 and later impregnating them.

Ditau, which is implicated in this free-for-all child molestation together with Lehlasedi, Alfred Matshine, Sedibeng, Letshele and Sekhukhusa held marathon meetings from last week until Monday where sources say the management and teaching staff demanded that the matter be handled internally instead of an outside task team or inquiry being invited to probe. “They said that it is equivalent to the School Governing Body handing them over to a hungry lion and that their idea of an SGB was for a body that will defend them”, said a source who attended the five hour meeting.

“I said to them that we will put together a task team comprising police, a social worker, community leader and a priest to probe. Our approach would be to provide Suggestion Boxes where learners and educators can make their input without fear of being victimised. The submission will go into a report that we will submit to the department of education to act”, said SGB Chairperson Mr. Platus Mokoena.

This is the proposal that had lots of teachers hot under the collars. “what is more worrying is that while the suspects appeared resigned to the eventuality and contemplating taking severance packages the female teachers were the ones who were obstructive of the process, joined by few male teachers”, he added.

The department of Education has since reported that they have launched their own investigation. “We have instructed the (Bushbuckridge) regional office to give us a full report on the allegations and to tell us what is it that they have done to remedy the situation. And we will take it from there”, said spokesperson Mr. Jasper Zwane. He said the allegations are viewed in serious light.

The regional office confirmed that their labour section is liaising with the South African Council of Educators (SACE) and has instructed managers of both Shatale and Casteel circuits to also investigate.

However some community members have raised their cynicism with the department’s attitude towards teachers who molest learners since ‘the department has known about it for all these years but only waited for a newspaper to act as if it cares’.

In the 1990s Mr. Simon Mashego, a teacher at Ditau was sentenced to a prison term for murder and attempted murder after shooting to death a learner he was involved with. He reportedly found her in bed with her policeman boyfriend. That did not serve as a wake-up call to the department. A Sedibeng Primary School teacher was accused of raping a teenage learner and was later acquitted by the Mapulaneng Magistrate Court due to a technicality. “Even though evidence was led that there was under-age sex the department never pursued disciplinary for misconduct or even statutory rape”, a source protested.

Another concerned parent Mr. Steve Mashego wrote a letter to the SGB of Lehlasedi, “I hereby request the SBG to organise a meeting of the parents of all the pupils of the school as soon as possible to interrogate the newspaper report and restore the public image of the school”. Lehlasedi is one of the schools where tens of learners are impregnated every year, reportedly by educators.

“From what I see these people are not innocent. Heads must roll. Given the pregnancy rate at Ditau you can tell that these teachers are not even practicing safe sex. We expect SADTU as a responsible organistaion to also investigate and make sure the perpetrators are punished”, concluded Mokoena.

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EXCLUSIVE

In Sex We Trust - Teachers

Ditau Secondary School is so infested with sex pest teachers that learners claim only two are not guilty of making sexual advances to them. This is a township public school which obtained position five in Shatale Circuit with 36.7% matric pass rate and a minimum age intake of 13 years.

This emerged during an investigation that started last year. The climax came recently when learners were locked out of school for being late.15-years old Maureen Lebyane* complained about a teacher known to this newspaper who she said was harassing her. “If I go to class now he will call me and demand sex for being late. Even if he meets me in town he still asks me when am I going to give it to him”, she complained. The teacher in question is married with two young children.

A former learner of another Shatale school Lorraine Sedibe* (23) was impregnated by her school principal seven years ago. “He started off befriending my brother who participated in a lot of school activities. Before I knew it he was proposing me. We have a child together”, she says. The principal as well is married with children.

Another Bushbuckridge learner Mpho Theko* (20) who also dated her school principal says, “whenever we went for school trips I would spend the day before and after with him. I have a one year old child with him”.

The issue of teachers who sleep with learners and later threaten them with failing if they don’t comply has been a burning issue in Bushbuckridge with nobody, including political formations and civic bodies wanting to tackle it. “The problem is that these teachers buy groceries for these children and the parents are benefitting. Immediately you try to interfere you are being asked if you will provide for the family and whether you have evidence that they are sleeping together?”, a frustrated civic leader who sits on one of the school’s governing body said.

Asked why would anybody agree to sit on the body if they have no intention of remedying the situation another SGB member said it’s something that needs teacher unions and female teachers to decide that it should stop. “These male teachers abuse these girls infront of the female teachers and their reasons have always been that they will take their own kids to white schools where teacher discipline is high”, argued Patrick Nkuna*, who teaches at Casteel’s Reti High.

It has gotten so ugly that another principal and a science teacher who prides himself of having slept with almost all his learners over a twelve year period are currently embroiled in a love triangle with a former learner they both started dating while still in school. “it’s so comical that the teacher will come to see the girl, immediately he leaves the principal arrives and badmouths him for sleeping with learners at the school”, said a neighbour who is a confidante of the woman.

At the end it is the school learners who fail since it is difficult for them to concentrate in an environment where almost all the male teachers want to sleep with them. Schools with similar reputations in Bushbuckridge include Lehlasedi, Serisha, Alfred Matshine, Sekhukhusa, Letshele and Sedibeng which is a higher primary school.

Asked about the scourge two years ago Mpumalanga SADTU Chairperson Mr. Solwako Mahlangu was evasive. He told this newspaper that while it is against the union’s Code of Conduct to sleep with learners they don’t keep a database of offending teachers who are their members. “We deal with each case as it comes, but we are not in the business of keeping statistics”, Mahlangu said.

South African Council of Educators empower parents to object if their background check of an educator indicates that they have been found guilty or cited for sexual offences in the past. SACE Code of Conduct binds teachers to ‘eliminate unprofessional behaviour such as teacher-pupil relationships, drunkenness, drug use, assault, sexual harassment and others’.

Mpumalanga Department of Education spokesperson Mr Jasper Zwane was not available for comment on whether they keep statistics and whether they make them available to schools prior to hiring a new teacher. This is information that unions would do best to make available to employers, if only they kept it. This is a story we will be following throughout the year.

* Names have been changed to protect the sources