Sex and bribery in SA's schools
The South African Council of Educators is worried... about sex pest teachers and parents who take bribes.
|||Durban - The South African Council of Educators has called on teachers to restore the dignity of the profession amid an increase in allegations of sexual misconduct by teachers with their pupils.
SACE spokesman Themba Ndhlovu was addressing members of the National Teachers' Union during its Durban regional conference held in uMlazi on Friday.
He said there were an increased number of allegations of misconduct in the Umlazi education district - which covers parts of Durban - in the past months, but could not provide statistics on Sunday.
The Daily News's sister paper, The Star, reported a 2015 incident where an allegedly drunk teacher offered a Grade 11 schoolgirl up to R2 000 to have sex with her when she went to inquire about her marks not being complete, despite submitting her work.
Speaking to the Daily News on Sunday, Ndhlovu said such incidents brought the teaching profession into disrepute and called on teachers to refrain from the career-ending acts.
"We are worried by the numbers we are getting, it is a worrying factor. We are getting a lot of complaints around those (sexual misconduct) issues. They are bringing the profession into disrepute. We appeal to members to refrain from such; they must make sure to uphold the status of the profession by not involving themselves in this," he said.
Ndhlovu said it was important for school governing bodies and principals to report misconduct to the SACE so that the council could deal with the allegations of misconduct.
He said there was also a worrying practice of bribing the families of victims - which saw parents refusing to let pupils give evidence.
"In our country cases go unreported, parents get bribed into not reporting cases that affect their children. That is worrying. Parents cannot sell the lives of their children because of money. There are lots of cases reported to us, then they suddenly say their children are no longer available to testify," he said.
Ndhlovu said this was worrying because this made the "predators" think they could "buy their way" out of trouble.
"Children are brought to our schools to be taught by teachers who are parents themselves. At no time do we expect a parent to take advantage of a child. We will deal with the case to its conclusion. Those people will often be dismissed and struck off the roll, and can no longer seek employment anywhere with children," he said.
SACE submitted offenders to the child protection register, which means those teachers can never work with children again. It was thus important for employment agencies - such as schools that made school governing body appointments - to check with SACE first before hiring any teacher.
"Before schools employ anyone, they must check with SACE and the child protection register, so that they at no point employ somebody to whom our children will never be safe."
Daily News