South Africa: Teacher Accused of Assaulting Learner With Pipe

5 May 2023
Scrolla (Johannesburg)
By Doreen Mokgolo

A teacher at Nkabinde Primary School, Kwa-Thema Springs, allegedly assaulted an eight-year-old Grade 3 learner with a plastic water pipe on Tuesday for writing slowly.

The school principal then allegedly tried to cover up the incident, asking the girl to pretend she had tripped and "was injured by a rock".

The child was bending over her desk to write when the teacher allegedly hit her on the back.

She sustained multiple bruises and struggled to sit down. Her parents had to seek medical attention.

Fellow learners in the class revealed that the teacher regularly uses the pipe to hit them on the palms of their hands.

The victim's father told Scrolla.Africa that he was shocked when he saw the bruises. When he asked his daughter about them, she told him that she had been beaten by her class teacher.

"When I approached the school, the school principal apologised, but members of the SGB refuted the claims, claiming that my daughter was making up the allegations.

"I asked the principal for the school or teacher to cover my daughter's medical bills; I was told that she could not commit to that as she still had to meet with the teacher and SGB."

He added that the school principal asked his daughter to claim she had hurt herself, and had never been assaulted.

"The school principal called my daughter in her office yesterday, forcing her to say that she fell and was injured by a rock."

The father added that the medical report indicated that the child's spine was injured due to the assault.

"Corporal punishment has been abolished in South African schools for over two decades now, but we still have teachers assaulting our children," he said.

"My daughter now fears going back to school from the trauma. All I want is for the teacher to be held accountable for her actions."

The Gauteng Department of Education is aware of the allegations of corporal punishment against the educator at the school.

"As the department, we take such allegations seriously and as such an investigation into circumstances surrounding this incident has been launched," a spokesperson said.

"The report at our disposal reveals that the said learner was at school the entire day on Monday, 24 April 2023 to date. Furthermore, the allegations that the learner has not been to school were unfounded."

Read the original article on Scrolla.

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